March 2017

29 May- 2 June 2017: Workshop in Colombia

Meeting between OPAL Swiss and Colombian teams on activities and progress done in Colombia, incl. further support of the activities.

Sept. 2017: Team leaders meeting in Zurich (TBC)

Meeting with representatives from all countries to discuss progress and specific issues like research integration.

4-5 Sept. 2017: Mid-term evaluation and pre- synthesis workshop Ecosystem in Bern, Switzerland

Evaluation meeting with direct exchanges with the SNF r4d Review Panel, exchange sessions between the project teams and a workshop to identify synergies between the projects and synthesis themes.

5-8 Sept. 2017 - ICRD Conference, Bern

International Conference on Research for Development co-hosted by SNF’s r4d programme and the University of Bern.

NEWSLETTER

Agenda 2017

OPAL Activities

Nr. 5

Game session with stakeholders in Switzerland

The ETH team organized a workshop to explore with stakehold-ers from Switzerland the resilience of the Oil Palm supply chain in Cameroon. The workshop used the CoPalCam game devel-oped in the field by the project Cameroonian team. The lists of guests included institutions and NGOs involved in conservation and sustainability (Greenpeace, IUCN, UNEP, TFT), but also the industry. Tight agendas prevented private companies to at-tend however, and we will organize another workshop later in 2017 to let them share their insights.

All participants played the game with a lot of enthusiasm, strug-gling to balance the livelihood needs with their own personal objectives of sustainability and conservation. They experienced first-hand the forces at play – time pressure, uncertainty, power imbalances – that prevent smallholders to considering environ-mental factors. Irrespective of their own personal values, small-growers are often not in a position to think about sustainability.

One of the players, Xenia Klaus from the online sustainability magazine "Das Lamm", described her experience in an article. English translation here.

Bachelor Student Nora Bögli is now conducting interviews with the participants to collect their feedback: what were the surpris-es, what did they learn, what should we do next. One thing we believe: this was not yet another discussion about supply chain links with stakeholders sharing widely diverging views. The first responses we have show the workshop had quite an impact on their perception and understanding. Does that count as sub-stantive outcomes? We think so.

More photos here.

Oil Palm Adaptive Landscapes — www.opal-project.org - OPAL on Facebook

News from Colombia………………...…..…...2

News from Cameroon………..………….….3

Latest publications………………………....…3

Other Activities in Switzerland..…………......4

News from Indonesia……………..……….….5

Upcoming conferences……………...…….….5

Also in this newsletter...

Photos 1 and 2: Smallholders negotiating prices at the industrial mills. © Danny Nef

OPAL in Colombia

Oil Palm Adaptive Landscapes — www.opal-project.org - OPAL on Facebook

Colombia designing its role playing game

In 2016, the OPAL Colombian team has been building the PARDI Model. Two workshops and 10 individual and group interviews were organized to validate the model with all of the actors invol-ved: investors, producers, public and private environmental research organizations; biodiesel producers, GEF Institution, NES Naturaleza and Javeriana University.

Read the full summary report here.

In November 2016, the team carried out a third workshop with the oil palm union (Fedepalma) to further validate the model, and a value chain was included into it at the demand of the union. Using the model, the team is now designing a role playing game.

Oil Palm Sector in Colombia. Reports by NES Natura-leza

NES NATURALEZA as an expert of the Palm oil sector published a second document as a summary of the main aspects related to the palm oil sector during the second half of 2015 and the first half of 2016. Production and price statistics are highlighted both interna-tionally and locally as well as the sector's competitiveness chal-lenges to access the international markets.

A 3rd Report (in Spanish) has also been published in August 2016 on the situation in the Orinoquia region (Llanos Orientales), where most of Colombia’s palm oil is being produced.

The first report (in Spanish) from October 2015 is available here.

Communication strategy in Colombia

The Colombian team started a communications strategy in Septem-ber 2016, led by WWF Colombia. It intends to focus on the goals of the OPAL Project. The idea is to share with stakeholders the results and learning to strengthen networks and knowledge. A flyer of the project was designed (see figure opposite) that uses illustra-tion as a tool to explain how Oil Palm Adaptive Landscapes can be built among several actors. The information emphasizes the bene-fits of achieving an active dialogue among actors, as opposed to an unplanned expansion of the crop. It permitted to gather data about palm oil growth in the country and to show - in a visual way - the opportunities of setting commitments to achieve a sustainable land-scape for the oil palm production .

New Staff The communication strategy is led by new OPAL team member Carolina Escallón (WWF Colombia). Carolina is a social commu-nicator and journalist with 10 years’ experience in creating projects for brands and NGOs. She has a great experience in developing and overseeing print and digital communications materials such as press releases, newsletters, social media campaigns, talking points, and donor reports to increase stakeholder engagement and support.

Welcome Carolina! Flyer designed as part of the communication strategy.

OPAL in Cameroon

Oil Palm Adaptive Landscapes — www.opal-project.org - OPAL on Facebook

Our latest publications

Learning begins when the game is over, by Claude Garcia, Anne Dray and Patrick Waeber, ETH Zurich (Gaia, December 2016)

La transdisciplinarité, un jeu d'enfant? Comprendre le moteurs du changement en milieu forestier tropical, by A. Dray, E. Fauvelle, P. Levang, E. Ngom, J. Ghazoul and C. Garcia (Hotspot, October 2016). Also available in German: Transdisziplinarität: ein Kinderspiel? Ursachen für Umweltprobleme erkennen und verstehen.

Reporte de estado actual Llanos Orientales, tercer reporte - OPAL Colombia, by NES Naturaleza (August 2016)

Oil palm sector in Colombia, second report - OPAL Colombia, by NES Naturaleza (June 2016)

Agrarian structure and oil palm plantation agroecosystem in Kutai Kartanegara District, by Arya Hadi Dharmawan, Bayu Eka Yulian and Faris Rahmadian, IPB CARDS (May 2016)

How do different stakeholders perceive palm oil in food and its impact on the environment? Master Thesis, by Nora Zoller, ETH Zurich (May 2016)

Expansion of oil palm plantations and changes in social, economic and rural ecology: a case study in Kutai Kartanegara, by Arya Hadi Dharmawan, Dyah Ita Mardiyaningsih and Bayu Eka Yulian, IPB CARDS (May 2016)

Master theses in Cameroon

The two interns that OPAL Cameroon received last year have completed their work. Théo Martin, a Master student of Ag-ricultural Development from the Institut des Régions Chaudes (France), was hosted by CIFOR and Marie Gaëlle Ngo Njiki, Master 2 level student in Economy and Rural Sociology from the Faculty of Agronomy and Agricultural Sciences (FASA) of the University of Dschang (Cameroon), was hosted by WWF Cameroon.

Marie Gaëlle successfully defended her work in December 2016 at the University of Dschang and she obtained a “Mention Très Bien” for her work. Théo Martin’s successfully defended his MSc in Montpellier. He got the best result of his class and his report is top level.

Congratulations to both of them! You will find below abstracts of their respective theses:

Marie Gaëlle NGO NJIKI : “Agrarian diagnosis of Ngwei: Contribution of palm oil to household economy.”

Théo Martin: “Smallholdings or agro-industries: which model for oil palm development in Cameroon?”

New staff in Cameroon

Micresse Gaingne Kamto just joined the OPAL Cameroon Team on 1st March 2017 as CoPalCam game facilitator. She will be preparing and facilitating a series of regular game ses-sions in Cameroon with different categories of stakeholders to better capture the dynamics in the sector and to provide ade-quate responses to different policy options. She will be collect-ing feedback from all these game sessions and will be support-ed by the whole OPAL Cameroon Team.

Micresse is an agronomist and has worked with ETH Zurich in similar projects in Cameroon, like in the photo opposite where she is facilitating a game session of the CoForTips project.

Welcome Micresse! Micresse, standing in the middle, facilitating a game session.

© Micresse Gaingne Kamto

Other news from OPAL in Switzerland

Update from the ETH-Hydro team Gabriele Manoli and Simone Fatichi (ETH Zurich) are tailoring an existing eco-hydrological model (T&C) for applications in oil palm plantations and tropical evergreen forests. Preliminary results are very promising. The model will be a useful tool for understanding carbon and water fluxes from oil palm landscapes, as well as implications for oil palm yields, local water availability and feedbacks to climate. All project partners are invited to collaborate, highlighting local issues and providing available data.

Game for secondary schools Manuel Stamm, Bachelor student of Environmental Science at ETH Zurich, will use the CoPalCam Game developed by the OPAL team in Cameroon to convert it into an educational tool for secondary school level. Within the scope of his Ba-chelor’s thesis he will create a German version of the game. He will test it with secondary school teachers who participate at information days with their classes in the context of the "Edible Research" project (SNSF, 2016-2018) to provide hands-on learning activities on food systems and agroecology for teenagers aged 12 to 15 in schools of Zurich. The project is led by the ETH group Sustainable Agroecosystems and the World Food System Center.

http://www.worldfoodsystem.ethz.ch/outreach-and-events/dissemination-and-participation/agora.html

R4d Skills - Training workshop organized by SNSF

On 28 October 2016, six members of the OPAL team attended a one-day training on Mixed Method Research organized by SNSF in Bern. The training was led by Alicia O’Cathain, Professor of Health Service Research (University of Sheffield, UK) who published widely on mixed methods, mixed teams and randomized control trials. She took the participants through a series of lectures and practical exercises to explore the integration of qualitative and quantitative data, the chal-lenges and opportunities around, the quality assessment and how to disseminate and publish transdisciplinary research. More info here.

Training on Ecosystem Services On 8-10 November 2016, Nur Hasanah (PhD Student, ETH Zurich) attended a training on Ecosystem services at the Uni-versity of Zurich, where she learnt tools and methods (such as Co$ting Nature and InVEST) that are available for scenario building, ecosystem modelling and stakeholder engagement in order to complete ecosystem service assessments. She pre-sented her current research about what local communities in Kutai Kartanegara think about ecosystem services. The train-ing was organized by the University of Zurich and Agroscope (Swiss research into agriculture, nutrition and the environ-ment).

Seminar on palm oil organized by the Embassy of Malaysia (Zurich, 6 February 2017)

Anne Dray and Claude Garcia attended a seminar organized by the Embassy of Malaysia entitled “Palm Oil and Its Im-portance: Food, Health and Sustainability”. During the networking breaks, they talked about the OPAL project to various people (Nestlé, Socfinco, PanEco, etc…), who showed great interest in following our work and in participating to a next stakeholders’ workshop organized by the OPAL Team at ETH.

Oil Palm Adaptive Landscapes — www.opal-project.org - OPAL on Facebook

From left to right: Claudia Zingerli (SNSF), Thomas Guillaume (EPFL), Bayu Eka Yulian (IPB), Anne Dray (ETH), John Garcia Ulloa (ETH), Alicia O’Cathain (guest speaker, University of Sheffield), Nur Hasanah (ETH) and Juan Carlos Quezeda Rivera

(EPFL). © SNSF

OPAL in Indonesia

Fieldwork in Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan, Indonesia (5-10 February 2017)

The IPB team conducted field visits to strengthen data and information on issues concerning the development of sus-tainable oil palm plantations in Indonesia. Under the coor-dination of Arya Hadi Darmawan the site visit was con-ducted at two oil palm plantation companies and some government agencies in Kutai Kartanegara Regency and East Kalimantan Province. The focus of this activity was to map out the issues related to the sustainability standards for sustainable palm oil plantations, nucleus-plasma part-nership, and gender issues as well as the licensing process in the development of oil palm plantations.

Read a full report here.

Bogor Agricultural University recruiting 3rd PhD The IPB team will start soon the recruiting process of a 3rd PhD to start in September 2017. The focus will most likely be Regional economic and rural economic impacts of oil palm expansion.

The two current PhDs are Bayu Eka Yulian focusing on Livelihood and agrarian change, and Rizka Amalia on Sustainabil-ity standards and rural, environmental and social change as impacts of oil palm expansion.

Update from WWF Indonesia The component led by WWF Indonesia and the Luc Hoffmann Institute takes place in Kapus Hulu District (West Kaliman-tan) and aims to contribute to OPAL goals by providing a better understanding of factors contributing towards illegal be-haviours among smallholders, construct scenarios of change, and engage institutions for change to overcome the con-straints smallholders face, and achieve relatively larger wins-wins on livelihood, legality, and sustainability goals.

Because of political turbulence in Kapuas Hulu since spring 2016, progress had been slowed down, so during that time WWF Indonesia concentrated its efforts at national level (research on palm oil permits/issue of legality; active involvement in the Sustainable palm oil debate at national level)

In October 2016, a meeting could be held with the technical team in Kapuas Hulu. The landscape game was introduced and played. By using the real local land cover map, participants could get a good perspective of their landscape. This new ap-proach was well accepted among the members of the technical working group, so this will help engaging further with smallholders and stakeholders.

The full project update can be found here.

Upcoming conferences

Presence at the next ATBC and ICCB Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela and John Garcia Ulloa (both Postdoc at ETH Zurich) will be organizing a symposium titled “A landscape perspective on biodiversity conservation and management in oil palm mosaics” at the ATBC1 conference. They will be presenting two talks within this session titled “Forest connectivity for seed dispersal in Borneo: before and after oil palm development” and “Realizing ecologically sound land-use planning in the oil-palm industry”.

In addition John together with the Luc Hoffmann Institute fellows are organizing a symposium at the ICCB2 conference in Cartagena (Colombia) titled “Linking conservation science to decisions in the real world”. John will be presenting some of the activities carried out within the OPAL project in this session. Natalia will also be participating in this conference with a talk that further presents her research on changes in connectivity for frugivorous species in Borneo.

1 Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC). Conference in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. 9-14 July 2017.

2 International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB). Conference in Cartagena, Colombia, 23-27 July 2017.

With blue helmets, from left to right: Dyah Ita Mardiyaningsih, Arya Hadi Dhar-mawan and Rizka Amalia.© Dyah Ita Mardiyaningsih

Oil Palm Adaptive Landscapes — www.opal-project.org c/0 ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Newsletter contact: ariane.hangartner@usys.ethz.ch; jaboury.ghazoul@env.ethz.ch