Promoting alternatives to forest conversion
Beyond the oil palm plantations and the soy fields
The global soy and palm oil fever is pushing thousands of people into natural areas, including forests, to convert them into agricultural land.
In reality however, not all land is suitable for these crops. And quite often, other land-use activities are more appropriate than forest conversion.WWF's role is to give advice on alternative uses of forests - uses that keep the trees and bring in some income for small land-users. Nowhere is this more important than in Indonesia, where almost half of the population lives on less than US$2 a day.1
Alternatives to forest conversion
Our efforts in this direction include helping communities produce honey (Sumatra) and caju putih oil (Papua), which are activities that do not require clearing forests.In Borneo, WWF and local NGOs are working on forest restoration and sustainable agriculture such as organic wild rice farming. Time is of essence, as the project area is threatened by land clearing for illegal logging and palm oil. Here, WWF is pushing for organic certification of agricultural produce and sustainable livelihoods in collaboration with IUCN and other NGOs.
Heart of palm: definitely tasty, potentially sustainable
Does the word palmito (heart of palm in Spanish) sound familiar?
Harvested from the inner core and growing bud of certain palm trees, you may have sampled the subtle taste of this vegetable in a salad or with pasta. At WWF, we have several other reasons to like palmito.In Argentina, we found that wild grown palmito can be sustainably harvested while increasing the forest value and its productivity, as well as the landowners’ income. In fact, results of a market study show that there is a potential market for sustainably harvested and locally canned palmito.
With the help of WWF and other partners, including Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina, a canning factory has been built to start processing palmito – without clearing a single acre of native forest.
