Author Description

This engaged and vital edited volume brings together the varied viewpoints of academics, consultants and activists all concerned with the astonishing expansion of palm oil as a globally traded commodity. It reveals how this complex, contested and controversial expression of globalization transcends narrow national and sectoral interests, stimulating a transnational exchange of goods, capital and labour, as well as laws, norms, values and even understanding. Compelling, readable and insightful, the study shows that corporate responses to civil society's concerns about palm oil's role in global warming, human rights abuses, land grabbing and biodiversity loss, now need to be complemented by legal, regulatory and governance reforms to be effective. -- Marcus Colchester, Director, Forest Peoples Programme.