Jakarta, 05 December 2025 – In late 2024, the statement made by Indonesia’s current president regarding oil palm—that it is a tree that absorbs CO2 and should not be considered a contributor to climate change—has gained renewed attention. This comes in the wake of extreme rainfall and a cyclone in Sumatra and Aceh, which have caused floods and landslides. These disasters renewed debate about land use for monoculture plantations (e.g. oil palm plantations) and how the trees in natural forests are not just merely trees.

Oil Palm Plantation is not a Forest Ecosystem

Some politicians argue that because oil palm is a tree, it should provide similar environmental functions to forests as they sequester CO₂. Botanical and ecological science, however, draws an important distinction: plantations may sequester CO₂, but they do not replicate the wider benefits of a tropical forest ecosystem, such as biodiversity support, complex habitat structure, soil protection, and water regulation. From a scientific perspective, it’s essential to base comparisons on established ecological classifications and measured ecosystem functions, rather than on whether the vegetation is simply “made of trees.”

Structural Diversity: oil palm plantation vs natural forest

The argument is that all living things that have a leaf structure will have similar functions. However, the role of living things in a community is not solely determined by one of its body parts; it is the whole entity of the organism.

• Oil palm plantations: Oil palms (Elaeis guineensis) are monocots (family Arecaceae). As a monocot, oil palm does not undergo secondary thickening (no vascular cambium), so it does not produce ‘true wood’ like most rainforest timber trees. Further, the roots are largely concentrated near the surface (fibrous rooting system). In a plantation setting, they are typically grown as a monoculture, dominated by a single species. This, in turn, creates a more uniform plant architecture, i.e., a similar trunk form, similar crown height, and similar spacing compared with a natural forest.
• Tropical rainforests: Natural tropical forests contain a mixture of monocots and dicots, but are often dominated in biomass by woody dicot trees (e.g., dipterocarps in Southeast Asia). Many dicot trees have secondary growth (via vascular cambium), producing large woody stems and complex branching that help generate the multi-layered forest structure, including emergent trees, closed canopy, sub-canopy, understory shrubs, and ground vegetation.

Carbon Storage

A key claim in the debate is that oil palm is a “tree,” so plantations should contribute to climate solutions in the same way forests do. The science is more specific: what matters is total ecosystem carbon, i.e. carbon stored aboveground, belowground, and especially in soils, not simply whether the dominant plant has a trunk.

• Natural forests: Primary tropical rainforests are among the world’s largest carbon reservoirs, as they store carbon in massive, long-lived woody biomass and in deep, complex soils that have been built up over centuries. Many estimates place total carbon stocks in the hundreds of tonnes per hectare, depending on forest type, age, and soil conditions.
• Oil palm plantations: Oil palm plantations can store carbon in their biomass, but the total stock is generally much lower than that of an intact rainforest, especially when plantations replace old-growth forest and when soil carbon is lost through clearing, burning, drainage, and soil disturbance.
• The carbon “deficit”: Converting natural forest to plantation typically creates a carbon debt: large emissions occur immediately from vegetation removal and soil disturbance, while the plantation regains carbon more slowly and seldom reaches the forest’s original carbon stock. In other words, calling a plantation a “forest” can obscure the net climate cost of forest conversion.

Biodiversity “Deserts”

A natural rainforest is not just “a lot of trees.” It is a multi-species, multi-layered ecosystem—emergent trees, closed canopy, sub-canopy, understory, and a rich forest floor which supports thousands of interacting species. By contrast, an oil palm plantation is typically a monoculture crop system, dominated by a single species planted at uniform spacing and often managed to reduce understory vegetation.

Biodiversity loss: When rainforest is converted into an oil palm monoculture, the landscape usually loses much of its habitat complexity, food resources, and nesting sites. Across many studies and taxa, species richness and abundance can drop severely, putting additional pressure on forest-dependent wildlife (including iconic endangered species such as orangutans and tigers in parts of Southeast Asia).

Why this difference matters for water regulation

The same features that reduce biodiversity can also weaken the landscape’s ability to buffer heavy rainfall.

• Uniform vs diverse rooting systems: Natural forests contain many plant types with different root depths and architectures. This diversity creates multiple pathways for water to infiltrate and be stored across soil layers, thereby helping to maintain soil structure over time. In a monoculture plantation, rooting patterns are usually more uniform, narrowing the range of “hydrological tools” the ecosystem has for absorbing and redistributing water.
• Canopy layering and rainfall interception: Rainforests intercept rainfall at multiple heights, i.e. upper canopy, mid-story, understory, while the forest floor is protected by litter and dense vegetation. This layered structure slows the timing and energy of rainfall reaching the soil, giving water more time to soak in. Plantations typically have a simpler canopy and fewer layers, allowing more rainfall to reach the ground quickly and synchronously during storms.
• From infiltration to runoff: Oil palm fronds can intercept rainfall (an “umbrella” effect), but interception alone is not the same as flood protection. During intense storms, once leaves are saturated, flood regulation depends heavily on soil porosity, ground cover, and root-driven channels that allow water to infiltrate rather than flow over the surface. Where plantations have reduced understory cover, disturbed or compacted soils, drainage networks, or extensive access roads, water can move even faster as surface runoff.

The Solution: Innovation Over Redefinition—Where i3L Biotechnology Fits

At the end of the day, this debate should not be won by redefining what a forest is. It should be won by reducing real environmental impacts, such as carbon loss, biodiversity collapse, soil degradation, and flood risk through better science, improved land management, and enhanced accountability.

This is where i3L University’s Biotechnology Study Program can make a practical contribution. Through the Sustainable Biotechnology stream, students are trained to tackle sustainability not as a slogan, but as a measurable set of problems that demand evidence-based solutions.

What i3L Biotechnology can Contribute

• Waste-to-Energy and Circular Bioprocessing (Do more with existing land)

If national fuel policies increase demand for biodiesel blends (such as B50), the sustainability question becomes urgent: How can production scale without pushing further land conversion? One realistic pathway is to improve resource efficiency by utilising existing resources—especially oil palm waste streams, such as empty fruit bunches (EFB), palm kernel cake, and palm oil mill effluent (POME).

At i3L, students learn core bioprocessing skills, including fermentation, anaerobic digestion, enzyme-based conversion, downstream processing, and basic process design, which can be applied to converting these wastes into biogas, bioethanol, or other bio-based products.

Contribution in practice: Graduates can support industry projects that reduce emissions and waste burdens per ton of palm oil, helping companies increase output and energy yield without automatically expanding plantation areas.

• Environmental Biotechnology for Compliance Support 

EU sustainability expectations are evidence-based: companies need to demonstrate traceability and verifiable environmental performance, not just make claims. i3L’s environmental biotechnology training equips students with practical skills in sampling, basic laboratory analysis, and data handling that support sustainability monitoring in plantations and mills.

Contribution in practice: as entry-level staff or assistants to company sustainability teams/consultants, graduates can help with water and effluent monitoring (e.g., key wastewater parameters from POME treatment), soil health indicators, and structured documentation for audits—strengthening Environmental, Social, and Governance implementation and making compliance efforts more credible and measurable.

Concluding Remark

Oil palm is a tree crop, but a plantation is not a rainforest ecosystem. The responsible response is not to blur definitions, but to invest in science and talent that reduce the real drivers of risk: emissions, degraded soils, and disrupted hydrology. If Indonesia wants palm oil to remain globally competitive while protecting landscapes and communities, the most defensible path forward is innovation, verification, and restoration; exactly the skillset that biotechnology education can help build.

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