India is the world’s largest consumer and importer of palm oil. In an aggressive push towards self-sufficiency in vegetable oils, the Indian government is prioritizing the rapid expansion of domestic oil palm plantations to meet an expected doubling in palm oil consumption in the next 15 years. Yet the current expansion of oil palm in India is occurring at the expense of biodiversity-rich landscapes. Using a spatially explicit model, we show that at the national scale India appears to have viable options to satisfy its projected national demand for palm oil without compromising either its biodiversity or its food security. At finer spatial scales, India’s oil palm expansion needs to incorporate region-specific contingencies and account for trade-offs between biodiversity conservation, climate change, agricultural inputs and economic and social security. The policy decisions that India takes with respect to oil palm can substantially reduce future pressures to convert forests to oil palm plantations in the tropics globally.

印度是世界上最大的棕榈油消费国和进口国。为了积极推动植物油的自给自足，印度政府优先考虑迅速扩大国内油棕种植园，以满足未来 15 年棕榈油消费量翻番的预期。然而，目前印度油棕的扩张是以牺牲生物多样性丰富的景观为代价的。我们使用空间显式模型表明，在全国范围内，印度似乎有可行的选择来满足其预计的全国棕榈油需求，而不会损害其生物多样性或粮食安全。在更精细的空间尺度上，印度的油棕扩张需要考虑到特定地区的突发事件，并考虑到生物多样性保护、气候变化、农业投入与经济和社会保障。印度在油棕方面做出的政策决定可以大大减少未来在全球热带地区将森林转变为油棕种植园的压力。