The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme
The BEFTA Programme investigates management strategies to support biodiversity and ecosystem processes in oil palm landscapes. The overall aim of the BEFTA Programme is to test whether increasing landscape structural complexity can enhance oil palm sustainability at little or no cost to yields and profitability. Uniquely, the BEFTA Programme is a collaboration between universities, research institutes, and the oil palm industry, ensuring that management practices are realistic and implementable by land managers.
Oil palm yield
The research centre here at SMARTRI is a hive of activity, with researchers studying everything from the effect of rodenticides on barn owls to the carbon dynamics of an oil palm estate. By working with such a diverse team, the BEFTA Project has been able to collate data on a…
Barn owls and leopard cats
Predators, such as barn owls, have long been encouraged in oil palm plantations to control rats, which damage the ripening fruit. Attempts to establish new barn owl populations in the plantations have been very successful, and many estates, including those surrounding the BEFTA plots, now contain high densities of these…