Palm oil and deforestation

Palm oil has been one of the biggest drivers of deforestation in Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, oil palm plantations were the largest single cause of the loss of primary natural forest from 2001 to 2016, accounting for 23% of it.¹ New planting peaked in 2009 and 2012 and has since slowed,² but in 2025 industrial palm oil still cleared more than 31,000 hectares of old-growth forest in Indonesia.³

What is palm oil and where is it used?

Palm oil comes from the oil palm, mainly Elaeis guineensis.⁸ The oil is pressed from the fruit, and a second oil, palm kernel oil, comes from the seed. It is cheap and very versatile, so it turns up almost everywhere.⁹

• Food: margarine, chocolate, pizza, bread, cooking oil and animal feed.⁹
• Household and personal care: soaps, detergents, cosmetics and cleaning products.⁹
• Chemicals: palm-based oleochemicals feed into paints, coatings, pharmaceuticals, lubricants and food additives.⁸
• Energy: biofuels for transport, electricity and heat.⁹

Where is palm oil grown?

Oil palm grows in the humid tropics, but production is concentrated in two countries. Between 1970 and 2020, the world's land under oil palm grew almost tenfold, from 3 million to almost 30 million hectares.⁹

Source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, October 2026.⁴ Read more about the country that grows most of it on our Indonesia page.

How much deforestation does palm oil cause?

The boom years

The damage is concentrated in Southeast Asia. In a sample of plantations across the region, 45% stood on land that was forest in 1989.¹⁰ In Indonesia, oil palm caused 23% of the deforestation of primary natural forest between 2001 and 2016. Its share peaked at almost 40% in 2008–2009 and fell below 15% by 2014–2016.¹

A satellite study tracked the outcome from 2001 to 2019. Indonesia lost 9.79 million hectares of old-growth forest, 11% of the total. Of that, 3.09 million hectares ended up as oil palm. Industrial estates replaced far more forest than the smallholder plantings the study could detect: 2.13 million hectares against 0.72 million.²

Across the whole tropics, oil palm and soy together account for at least a fifth of the deforestation that ends in farm production.¹¹ See our page on the causes of deforestation for the wider picture.

The trend now

New plantings in Indonesia peaked in 2009 and 2012 and declined after. By 2017–2019, the country's deforestation had fallen below pre-2004 levels.² It has not reached zero. TheTreeMap, which tracks old-growth forest cleared for industrial plantations, reports:

• Industrial oil palm plantations expanded by 101,120 hectares in 2025, 18% less than in 2024.³
• Deforestation for those plantations did not fall: 31,073 hectares in 2025, against 30,956 in 2024.³
• In Papua, palm-oil-driven deforestation doubled to 7,333 hectares, its highest level since 2018.³
• Peat conversion fell, from 11,686 hectares in 2024 to 7,593 in 2025.³

These figures cover industrial estates and old-growth forest only, so they are not directly comparable with national deforestation totals.

Does RSPO certification stop deforestation?

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was founded in 2004 and has more than 6,200 member organizations.¹² Its 2018 standard says new plantings must not cause deforestation or replace areas of High Conservation Value, and bans new planting on peat after November 2018.¹³ In 2025, 16.2 million tonnes of RSPO-certified palm oil were sold, 20% of global supply.⁵

The evidence on impact is mixed:

• It helps on certified land. In Indonesia, certification cut the deforestation rate on certified plantations by a third, from an estimated 9.8% to 6.6% a year.⁶
• The total effect was small. Certification went mostly to older plantations with little forest left. By 2015, certified areas held less than 1% of the forest remaining inside Indonesian oil palm plantations. The study found no effect on fires or on forest loss in peatlands.⁶
• Experts agree it is no guarantee. A 2018 IUCN review found certified palm oil only marginally better than uncertified oil at preventing deforestation, while noting that the approach was still relatively new.⁷

The Indonesian study's data run to 2015, before RSPO's 2018 standard took effect.⁶¹³

Should you avoid palm oil?

Not necessarily, and this is where the debate gets uncomfortable. Oil palm is remarkably land-efficient. In 2017, it produced 36% of the world's vegetable oil on 8.6% of the land used for oil crops.⁹ A hectare yields about 2.9 tonnes of palm oil, against about 0.7 tonnes of sunflower or rapeseed oil.⁹

An IUCN task force concluded that banning palm oil would most likely increase the production of other oil crops, which can need up to nine times as much land. That would displace biodiversity loss rather than halt it.⁷ The same review found that oil palm affects 193 species assessed as threatened on the IUCN Red List.⁷

The useful question is not whether a product contains palm oil, but whether that oil came from land cleared of forest. Using less of every vegetable oil in processed food, cosmetics and fuel also helps.

How to check labels, and what the EUDR changes

In the EU, a food label cannot hide palm oil behind "vegetable oil": the specific plant origin of refined vegetable oils and fats must be listed.¹⁴ In cosmetics and cleaning products, palm-based ingredients can appear under chemical names such as glycerol or stearic acid, which can also be made from other sources, so labels tell you less.⁸

RSPO claims come in four supply chain models:¹⁵

• Identity Preserved: certified oil from a single identifiable certified source, kept separate throughout the supply chain.
• Segregated: certified oil from different certified sources, kept separate from ordinary palm oil.
• Mass Balance: certified oil mixed with ordinary palm oil along the supply chain.
• RSPO Credits: buyers support certified production without the certified oil being physically in their product.

The first two give the strongest link between your product and certified plantations.

The EUDR. The EU Deforestation Regulation treats oil palm as one of seven relevant commodities. It covers palm oil, palm kernels, palm kernel oil, palm kernel oilcake and several derivatives such as glycerol and fatty acids.¹⁶ From 30 December 2026 for large and medium operators, these products may only be sold in or exported from the EU if they are deforestation-free, legally produced and covered by due diligence.¹⁷ From 30 December 2027, more palm derivatives join the list, including soap and certain fatty alcohols, esters and other oleochemicals.⁸ The EU classifies both Indonesia and Malaysia as standard risk.¹⁸ See our EUDR guide and what works against deforestation.

Questions people ask