New Scientist - USA (2020-01-25)

10 | New Scientist | 25 January 2020

TYRE giant Michelin and green

group WWF have been criticised

by researchers over a rubber

plantation in Indonesia that

was billed as protecting the

environment, but which villagers

say has caused deforestation,

destroyed elephant habitat and

resulted in land grabs.

In 2015, Michelin began work on

the 66,000 hectare plantation on

the island of Sumatra, partnering

with WWF as an adviser, to source

rubber from an area that Michelin

had said had been ravaged by fires

and logging. The French company,

one of the world’s biggest buyers

of rubber, promised the plantation

would be “deforestation-free”,

“protect flora and fauna” by

creating a buffer zone for wildlife

and generate 16,000 jobs.

But a visit by German

researchers to the nearby village

of Muara Sekalo in the province

of Jambi has unearthed a very

different account of the project’s

impact. Farmers from the village,

and women working for one of

the plantation’s partners, told the

team that forests had been cleared

to establish the rubber trees.

Villagers also reported that the

plantation had destroyed the

habitat of elephants, leading

more of the animals to approach

the village and become more

aggressive, destroying farmers’

plantations (Journal of Land Use

Science, doi.org/djt4). Several

farmers were said to have

eventually abandoned their

plots as a result.

Some of the villagers reported

losing land to the plantation,

often because they only held

rights through custom, not official

deeds recognised by government

ministries. One village elder said

of land with trees his ancestors

had grown: “I feel like it is not fair

to give the land to the company,

but then we don’t have any proof

of the ownership but the trees.”

“The main point is really the

mismatch between the framing

of sustainable development on

the one side and what’s happening

on the ground on the other,” says

Fenna Otten at the University of

Gottingen, Germany, who visited

the village at the end of 2017.

She says the project wasn’t

entirely negative. Villagers

reported that the plantation had

created jobs, and one person was

excited by the prospect of being

trained in rubber tapping. Some

of the women working for the

plantation were pleased to be

paid cash in hand. Others said the

economic impact was mixed. One

villager said: “The village economy

did not change significantly,

sometimes the situation is better,

sometimes it is worse.”

In a statement, Michelin said

the project was “very important

to Michelin and to all its

stakeholders” and it regretted

the researchers hadn’t contacted

the company.

WWF said it was an adviser on

the project, but not involved in

running it. “Although we regret

the authors of the report haven’t

contacted us to verify the study, we

shall discuss the findings with all

those involved and call for them

to urgently address any concerns

raised by the local communities,”

a spokesperson says. ❚

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News

A view from the Muara

Sekalo village in Jambi,

Indonesia

Agriculture

How to feed

Earth’s booming

population

OUR current food system can feed

only 3.4 billion people without

transgressing key planetary limits,

according to an analysis of the

global farming system.

However, reorganising what is

farmed where – along with some

changes in diets – would enable

us to feed 10 billion people

sustainably, suggests the study. In

2009, researchers identified nine

so-called planetary boundaries:

limits that we shouldn’t exceed

if we want to maintain Earth’s

life-support systems.

Dieter Gerten at the Potsdam

Institute for Climate Impact

Research in Germany and his

colleagues looked at the four

boundaries that are relevant

to farming: not using too much

nitrogen; not taking too much

fresh water from rivers; not

cutting down too much forest;

and maintaining biodiversity.

The team’s conclusion is that half

of food production today violates

these limits. However, this analysis

is also the first to provide insights

into where these limits are being

transgressed. By changing what

is farmed where, the team says it

would be possible to feed 10 billion

people within the four limits.

This would involve rewilding

farms in areas where more than

5 per cent of species are threatened,

for instance, and reducing water

withdrawal for irrigation and other

purposes where too much is taken.

Farms could be expanded in

areas where these limits

aren’t being exceeded.

It could, for example, mean

restricting fertiliser use in parts

of China and central Europe, and

expanding it in parts of sub-Saharan

Africa and the western US (Nature

Sustainability, doi.org/djt7).

Such changes would allow the

sustainable production of enough

food for 7.8 billion people.

Reductions in food waste

and a shift away from eating meat

could increase this to 10.2 billion,

slightly more than the projected

world population in 2050. ❚

Michael Le Page

10.2bn

How many people we could

feed sustainably, in theory

Environment

Adam Vaughan

Deforestation for rubber

Sustainable plantation criticised for destroying elephant habitat