Challenges for implementing zero deforestation commitments in a highly forested country: Perspectives from Liberia’s palm oil sector

Halting deforestation is essential to address climate change and biodiversity loss. However, in highly forested, low-income countries like Liberia, “zero deforestation” commitments (ZDCs) adopted by companies may restrict agricultural expansion that has been promoted in national strategies to alleviate poverty. In such situations, examining contrasting perspectives among stakeholders is important to inform ZDCs’ implementation. Here, we applied Critical Systems Heuristics in 94 interviews to explore stakeholders’ perspectives on, and thereby develop a systematic understanding of, ZDCs in Liberia’s concession-based palm oil sector. We found that regulatory, institutional, and political factors that were needed to support commitments’ implementation were missing. Concessions had initially been allocated without communities’ consent being adequately obtained, and oil palm expansion had subsequently been stalled by zero deforestation. This produced a situation where communities that lost farmland to oil palm were reluctant to allow further expansion, while communities in forest areas were frustrated by a lack of promised oil palm expansion. Consequently, although limited oil palm expansion suggests ZDCs were effective after they were adopted, this was perceived to have come at the expense of anticipated improvements in community welfare, with community members in highly forested areas feeling deprived of development. We argue that neither the complete development of Liberia’s oil palm concessions nor limited development with zero deforestation will necessarily improve communities’ welfare without reforming the concession system to promote community-led, deforestation-free agricultural development. This requires public governance reforms, novel mechanisms for agricultural investment, and the localisation of international standards to facilitate zero deforestation in smallholder agriculture.