Beyond Plantationocene: the green lie of sustainable palm oil industry in Ecuador

The thesis aims to develop a trans-scale and multi-scale critical geographical analysis of oil palm plantations and palm oil production, presenting how ecosystem degradation, labour exploitation and the subjugation of communities are caused by the socio-environmental impacts essential to sustain the agro-extractive practices, which are further legitimized through sustainable certification tools, particularly the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The actual modern area of conventional industrial agriculture plantations define the modern era of Plantationoce. This neologism re-evaluates the relationship between humans and nature by exploring the historical transformation of Earth's natural cycles. The oil palm plantations is one of the industrial sectors that best represents and summarises these attributes (Pye, 2021). It represents the 5% of the total amount of oil crop area, covering an area of around 240.000 km2, roughly the size of United Kingdom with production exceeding 78 million tons of palm oil in 2024 (Descals et al., 2024; Meijaard et al., 2020; USDA, 2024). World oil palm cultivation between 1996 and 2020 grew by 694%, with an annual growth rate of 8.7%, making it the fastest growing monoculture in the world (Sibhatu, 2023). Today, it is the sixth largest oil plant in terms of area under cultivation, after soya, rapeseed, sunflower, groundnuts and seed cotton, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of United Nations databases. The expansion and popularity of the oil palm is due to its high yields and low production costs (Meijaard et al., 2018). In fact, its yields are from four to ten times higher than other vegetable oil crops, which is why today palm oil is the most traded and consumed oil worldwide (Chiriacò et al., 2022; Ostfeld and Reiner, 2024). Nowadays, RSPO is the most widespread sustainability private certification initiative in the global palm oil market, highlighting how this tool is necessary to preserve the existing pattern of production and predation of territories, framing them as sustainable through expertise and private knowledge supported by a clientelist certification system. The discussion then moves from the global perspective to the continental context of Latin America and, subsequently to the national context of Ecuador and specifically in Ecuadorian Amazon Region (EAR) as case of study. A critically analysis has been developed to examine the actual expansion of the palm oil industry in the region through the implementation of RSPO certification schemes and international funding, together with national laws and initiatives. All these dynamics provoke serious socio-ecological territorial implications. The final part of the thesis seek to imagine, both practically and theoretically, a potential transition for oil palm plantations through an agroecological approach, the application of tools such as participatory guarantee systems (PGS) and the use of GIScience instrument. The aim is to support alternative design of plantations and rethinking that space as a combination of a diverse multitude that aims both at yield and production but equally focuses on the conservation of ecological processes and ecosystem services essential for the preservation of the Amazonian biome such as the integration of tree biodiversity island practices within the plantations. Combining these scientific evidences confirming the improving of the biodiversity in the oil palm plantations and preserving the ecological function and ecosystem services, this work outline a viable path of agroecological transition, integrating existing agroecological lighthouse farms which are virtous practices already developed in the region in a autonomous and self-managed ways, to image future scenarios, going beyond the industrial plantations landscape.