Taking the Bitter with the Sweet: Sugarcane's Return as a Driver of Tropical Deforestation

Over more than 400 years, large areas of tropical forest in Brazil, the Caribbean, the Philippines, Australia, and other parts of the world were cleared to make way for sugarcane plantations. There is a general consensus in the scientific community that since the 1950s, the frontier expansion of sug...

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Autores principales: Obidzinski, K., Kusters, K., Gnych, S.
Formato: Journal Article
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Wiley 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/95266
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author Obidzinski, K.
Kusters, K.
Gnych, S.
author_browse Gnych, S.
Kusters, K.
Obidzinski, K.
author_facet Obidzinski, K.
Kusters, K.
Gnych, S.
author_sort Obidzinski, K.
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Over more than 400 years, large areas of tropical forest in Brazil, the Caribbean, the Philippines, Australia, and other parts of the world were cleared to make way for sugarcane plantations. There is a general consensus in the scientific community that since the 1950s, the frontier expansion of sugarcane has stabilized and direct pressure on tropical forests from sugarcane expansion has diminished. Here, we show, however, that sugarcane plantations are on the cusp of returning as a major driver of deforestation in Indonesia. The Indonesian government has developed preferential policies designed to boost sugar production in the name of national food security, and is seeking to convert more than 1 million hectares of tropical forest into sugarcane plantations. If fully developed, the plantation expansion program will undermine Indonesia's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The scale of the expansion program is such that it will radically alter the global environmental impact of sugarcane.
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spelling CGSpace952662025-06-17T08:23:17Z Taking the Bitter with the Sweet: Sugarcane's Return as a Driver of Tropical Deforestation Obidzinski, K. Kusters, K. Gnych, S. agricultural development agriculture deforestation food security tropical forests ecology Over more than 400 years, large areas of tropical forest in Brazil, the Caribbean, the Philippines, Australia, and other parts of the world were cleared to make way for sugarcane plantations. There is a general consensus in the scientific community that since the 1950s, the frontier expansion of sugarcane has stabilized and direct pressure on tropical forests from sugarcane expansion has diminished. Here, we show, however, that sugarcane plantations are on the cusp of returning as a major driver of deforestation in Indonesia. The Indonesian government has developed preferential policies designed to boost sugar production in the name of national food security, and is seeking to convert more than 1 million hectares of tropical forest into sugarcane plantations. If fully developed, the plantation expansion program will undermine Indonesia's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The scale of the expansion program is such that it will radically alter the global environmental impact of sugarcane. 2015-11 2018-07-03T11:02:41Z 2018-07-03T11:02:41Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/95266 en Open Access Wiley Obidzinski, K., Kusters, K., Gnych, S.. 2015. Taking the Bitter with the Sweet : Sugarcane's Return as a Driver of Tropical Deforestation. Conservation Letters, 8 (6) : 449-455. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12172
spellingShingle agricultural development
agriculture
deforestation
food security
tropical forests
ecology
Obidzinski, K.
Kusters, K.
Gnych, S.
Taking the Bitter with the Sweet: Sugarcane's Return as a Driver of Tropical Deforestation
title Taking the Bitter with the Sweet: Sugarcane's Return as a Driver of Tropical Deforestation
title_full Taking the Bitter with the Sweet: Sugarcane's Return as a Driver of Tropical Deforestation
title_fullStr Taking the Bitter with the Sweet: Sugarcane's Return as a Driver of Tropical Deforestation
title_full_unstemmed Taking the Bitter with the Sweet: Sugarcane's Return as a Driver of Tropical Deforestation
title_short Taking the Bitter with the Sweet: Sugarcane's Return as a Driver of Tropical Deforestation
title_sort taking the bitter with the sweet sugarcane s return as a driver of tropical deforestation
topic agricultural development
agriculture
deforestation
food security
tropical forests
ecology
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/95266
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