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just noticed that my research has been picked up recently in one of your articles (April 18, 2018, “Palm oil not threat to nature: Research”).

Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the full article, so I can’t read completely what claims are being made in this article.

But just by reading the first lines of the article, I suspect that our research results have not been read carefully and that apparently wrong conclusions are being drawn.

Contrary to the claim of the author, we are highly convinced that oil palm cultivation is contributing to an increase of droughts (and also floods) across the country. Please re-check the original research article (Ecology & Society 2015) and also a briefing paper (BP) that I published (BP 1.2017).

Yes, it is true, the water consumption of oil palm is probably (we are still taking measurements) not higher than that of a dense forest. But because of land conversion (and consequent soil erosion) and intensive management practices in the plantations, groundwater resources cannot be refilled.

That’s the reason why many people in Jambi experience extreme problems of water scarcity in the dry season. Rubber, for example, has similar problems with soil degradation (if planted in monoculture), but water consumption is much lower than that of oil palm. Therefore, the impact on the groundwater resources is less.  

Since we published the research article in 2016, I have spent more than a year in Jambi conducting interviews in many different villages across the province. And wherever I went, people were complaining that soils, rivers, swamps and household wells run dry so quickly since oil palm plantations dominate the area.

No matter what, political conflicts are ongoing between Europe and Indonesia. For the sake of the local people, this issue should be addressed by politicians, oil palm companies and the press alike.

Jennifer Merten
PhD canditate
Human Geography
Faculty of Geosciences und Geography
Georg-August University Göttingen