The effects of zero-deforestation commitments and other such non-state environmental governance initiatives on environmental and social outcomes remain largely untested. In addition, the spillover effects of such interventions are widely hypothesized but challenging to identify and analyze with empirical datasets. Below are examples of research projects that fall under this theme.

Evaluating the environmental and socio-economic outcomes of oil palm sustainability certification

Funding: NASA New (Early Career) Investigator Program in Earth Science

Collaborators: Robert Heilmayr, Holly Gibbs, Douglas Morton, National Wildlife Federation, Jane Hill & Sarah Scriven

Location: Indonesia and Malaysia

Description: This research aims to evaluate the environmental and socio-economic effects of sustainability certification by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) using spaceborne remote sensing coupled with field data collection. Since 2000, voluntary sustainability standards for tropical commodities, especially palm oil, have grown substantially. About 20% of total palm oil production is now certified by the RSPO. Oil palm plantation expansion is associated with environmental and social harm including greenhouse gas emissions, water quality degradation, and rural livelihood change. The RSPO standard outlines environmental, economic, and social guidelines that could generate substantial improvements over these current socio-environmental outcomes. Yet, the benefits of certification remain unclear. Counterfactual analyses are required to establish whether certification confers additionality beyond business as usual. Discerning the factors contributing to certification success will support future improvements to standard design and implementation. This project will assess how certification leads to improved outcomes, and leverage recently-available spaceborne datasets to improve basic understanding of oil palm yields.

Mapping High Carbon Stock Forests to Support Zero-Deforestation Supply Chains

Funding: Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP), Google

Collaborators: Gary Paoli, National Wildlife Federation & Robert Heilmayr

Description: Diverse companies in the agricultural sector have recently committed to eliminate tropical deforestation from their supply chains. The High Carbon Stock (HCS) Approach is emerging as a primary methodology for the identification of forests that must be protected as part of a zero-deforestation commitment. This project synthesizes field observations from HCS assessments to predict HCS forests across Sumatra and Borneo islands using Google Earth Engine. Through collaboration with academics, civil society organizations, farmer cooperatives, and industry organizations, this research is designed to enable grater participation of small producers in zero-deforestation supply chains, and support conservation planning through landscape scale connectivity assessments.