![\"A](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/files\/2020\/07\/plantation-cropped.jpg\")
Supermarket shelves are stacked with coconut water, tubs of coconut oil and cream, coconut and chocolate bars. Like palm oil, coconut seems to be used in almost everything,\u00a0from hair conditioner to mosquito repellent<\/a>. So why is one palm loved and the other hated?<\/p>\n The oil palm tree is slightly more heavy-set, but otherwise indistinguishable from its coconut cousin. Oil palm is often associated with orangutans and other tropical species, because the role of plantations in destroying forest habitat is\u00a0well known<\/a>. When interviewing people about oil palm cultivation in 2018, I found that well over half answered that it must be negative, or even extremely negative, for the environment.<\/p>\n Coconut, on the other hand, appears to enjoy a sunnier reputation,\u00a0with 53% of consumers<\/a>\u00a0in a global poll citing coconut oil\u2019s health benefits, but few identifying its environmental impact. After all, it grows along tropical beaches that people pay a lot of money to visit, so how could it be bad?<\/p>\n The latest estimates<\/a> indicate that there are 20 million hectares of planted oil palm in the world and 12.5 million hectares of coconut. But coconut palms are mostly grown on tropical islands, many of which possess remarkable numbers of species found nowhere else on Earth. So, despite its benign reputation, coconut has a surprisingly large negative impact on tropical biodiversity.<\/p>\n Per volume of oil produced, coconut production affects more species than any other oil crop, including oil palm. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN),\u00a0coconut threatens<\/a>\u00a0some 20.2 species per million metric tonnes of oil produced, followed by olive with 4.1 species, oil palm with 3.8 and soybean, 1.3.<\/p>\n In fact, coconut cultivation has directly contributed to the extinction of some species. Oil palm so far hasn\u2019t, as far as we know. These species include a bird called the Marianne white-eye (Zosterops semiflavus<\/em>) of Marianne Island in the Seychelles, and the Solomon Islands\u2019 Ontong Java flying fox (Pteropus howensis<\/em>). Neither have been seen since 1945, but they were once found on islands that were mostly converted to coconut plantations.<\/p>\n Other species threatened by coconut production include the Balabac mouse-deer (Tragulus nigricans<\/em>), endemic to three Philippine islands; the Sangihe tarsier (Tarsius sangirensis<\/em>), an endemic primate of the Indonesian island of Sangihe; and the Cerulean paradise flycatcher (Eutrichomyias rowleyi<\/em>), also endemic to Sangihe.<\/p>\n As I am writing this at my desk in Brunei, I\u2019m watching the local coconut harvesters collecting today\u2019s ripe crop from palms in front of our apartment. One skilfully shimmies up the trunk and, within 20 seconds, is up in the palm\u2019s canopy. Harvesting and consuming coconuts has a long tradition in the Asian Pacific and should be cherished.<\/p>\n Rather than add coconut to the growing list of products to be avoided by conscientious consumers, we should understand that all crops and commodities have environmental consequences. The Spanish olive harvest\u00a0reportedly killed<\/a>\u00a02.6 million birds in 2019, as agricultural workers vacuumed up both olives and roosting birds at night. But the production of olive oil rarely raises concerns among consumers and environmentalists.<\/p>\n Like the production of any commodity, the coconut can be grown in a manner that minimises environmental impacts and maximises the social benefits for local people, as well as the health of those that consume it.<\/p>\n If people want to boycott palm oil due to its contribution to deforestation, perhaps they should also shun\u00a0coffee, chocolate and, indeed, coconut<\/a>. All food products must be sustainably grown and, for that to happen, we must understand that food systems need systemic change, not a fixation on a few bad apples.<\/p>\n This article, by Professor Erik Meijaard<\/a>, Honorary Professor of Conservation Science\u00a0at the\u00a0Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE)<\/a>, is republished from The Conversation<\/a>\u00a0under a Creative Commons licence. Read the\u00a0original article.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oil crops and biodiversity<\/h2>\n
![\"By](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/files\/2020\/07\/diagram-cropped.jpg\")
![\"Illustration](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/files\/2020\/07\/Marianne-white-eye-cropped.jpg\")
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Sustainable nutrition<\/h2>\n