WCC 2016 Res 061 - Activity Report

The current study on the Future of Vegetable Oils will be implemented together with the Sustainable Nutrition Scientific Board and published as an IUCN report. We are aiming for a powerful study that provides clarity about the difficult trade offs considerations among environmental, social, economic, nutritional and health outcomes. We will be implementing this study in close collaboration with the IUCN Secretariat, working early on a publication, launch and communications strategy. We aim to repeat the success of our 2018 Situation Analysis on Oil Palm and Biodiversity which is among the 15 most-downloaded IUCN reports and has helped change the debate about the sustainability of oil food systems.

The systematic review of the environmental impacts of vegetable oil production is delayed because our funding for global mapping of soybean, rapeseed, and sunflower was withdrawn. We are currently seeking new funding to continue this work. We are also conducting further studies on the interactions between different SDG indicators under smallholder, large holder, and unproductive oil palm in Indonesia, with a view toward expanding the new methodologies to other countries and oil crops. This preliminary work in Indonesia has been finalized and a scientific publication is under review.

We obtained funding from Microsoft-GEO for a project coordinated by the University of Kent, UK, to globally map coconut plantations at high resolution. This project was implemented and the mapping was completed in 2022. A scientific publication is under review.

We are currently implementing a study on the Future of Vegetable Oils.