{"id":28936,"date":"2024-11-24T03:39:45","date_gmt":"2024-11-24T03:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gapki.id\/en\/?p=28936"},"modified":"2024-11-25T03:52:16","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T03:52:16","slug":"palm-plantations-and-biodiversity-go-along-or-go-against","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gapki.id\/en\/news\/2024\/11\/24\/palm-plantations-and-biodiversity-go-along-or-go-against\/","title":{"rendered":"Palm Plantations And Biodiversity: Go Along Or Go Against?"},"content":{"rendered":"

JAKARTA \u2013 A certain group of people consider the biodiversity of oil palm plantations as very low. But they could not provide convincing data to support their opinion. The following facts and descriptions will show the biodiversity reality of palm plantations.<\/p>\n

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The oil palm trees that are planted with minimum tillage, minimum weeding and with no ratoons, will grow into trees with relatively large and high trunks and have a canopy cover almost 100 percent upon maturity. Oil palm trees have a life span or production cycle of 25-30 years.<\/p>\n

During land clearing or planting, some of the vegetations may migrate in short time to surrounding areas, but then they will return to the oil palm plantation areas. The characteristics of oil palm plantations which have a production cycle (life span) of 25-30 years also allow for the re-growth of biodiversity in the plantation areas (except for large mammals) along with the increasing age of the oil palm trees (PASPI Monitor, 2021a).<\/p>\n

A variety of empirical studies (Erniwati et al., 2017; Santosa et al., 2017; Santosa and Purnamasari, 2017; Suharto et al., 2019) reveal that the number of vegetation species in mature oil palm plantations is not always lower than the biodiversity on land before being converted into oil palm plantation (Ecosystem Benchmark) or the biodiversity in forested areas (High Conservation Value) around the plantation.<\/p>\n

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The study results have shown that the number of species in the oil palm plantations is not always lower than the biodiversity in the Ecosystem Benchmark or HCV. In fact, the development of oil palm plantations in several research locations had increased the number of species, such as herpetofauna and butterflies, compared to the number of species in the Ecosystem Benchmark or HCV. In one ecosystem landscape of oil palm plantation, there are several types of habitats such as young, medium, old oil palm plants, bushes, and HCV areas that are still left forested. With the variety of landscapes, it becomes an area for the growth and development of flora and fauna in the oil palm plantation ecosystem. This has also shown that biodiversity in oil palm plantations is not always lower than in forested areas.<\/p>\n

As a matter of fact, the biodiversity is also preserved under the cultivation system of oil palm plantations. During planting and maintenance phase of not-yet-productive plants, there in between the palm trees are planted cover crops of legume plants, such as Calopogonium sp., Pueraria sp., Mucuna sp., Centrosema sp. (Prawirosukarto et al., 2005; Yasin et al., 2006; PASPI Monitor, 2021l).<\/p>\n

In addition, oil palm farmers also develop various systems of integration, such as integration of oil palm with food crops (Partohardjono, 2003; Singerland et al., 2019; Baihaqi et al., 2020; Kusumawati et al., 2021) during the unproductive period, and integration of oil palm-livestock during the production or mature plant phase (Batubara, 2004; Sinurat et al., 2004; Ilham and Saliem, 2011; Utomo and Widjaja, 2012; Winarso and Basuno, 2013), so that the biodiversity of oil palm plantations increases. It is clear, therefore, that the biodiversity of oil palm plantations during land clearing does decrease, but then the biodiversity increases along with the age of the oil palm plantation. (*)\u00a0(Mitos 6-33)<\/em><\/p>\n

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Referensi<\/strong><\/p>\n