| Sumario: | Private-sector commitments to zero deforestation are a major step forward, with great potential to foster more sustainable production and consumption. But the implementation of these commitments has to confront diverse challenges, such as the ambiguity in policy processes, the politics surrounding what is desirable, and the difficulty of regulating a largely informal economy.
Expansion of crop plantations in the tropics continues to cause numerous negative social and environmental impacts, and oil palm is the most significant of the crops concerned, especially in Indonesia. This is particularly challenging, considering the legacy from policies on resource distribution that are embedded within patronage systems and the less than transparent political and policy processes associated with the questionable origins of palm oil development in Indonesia. State policies in the name of economic growth and rural modernization supported the expansion of a sector concentrated in the hands of a few large-scale companies by using policy incentives and granting state forests for conversion. These contributed to the original capital accumulation in the palm oil sector, which also benefited from a declining timber industry that was exhausting natural forests (Casson 2000).
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