WCC 2016 Res 061 - Progress Report

The publication of the Situation Analysis on Oil Palm and Biodiversity was published in 2018 alonside an extensive IUCN media and communications campaign that focused on a key finding that banning palm oil, as currently considered by the EU, will have unintended and yet unknown negative impacts on biodiversity and the environment elsewhere in the world. This is a key message that now seems to be frequently repeated in communication about oil palm, and indicators of media communication demonstrated wide uptake of the message. We conducted a formal impact assessment of the Situation Analysis through the use of pre- and post-publication questionnaires. Analysis is ongoing and data preliminary. There is an indication of the Situation Analysis changing perceptions and knowledge of readers compared to those people who didn't read the report, but effects are small - mostly because the sample size of the group of non-readers is very small