Oil Palm Adaptive Landscapes.

The expansion of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is one of the main drivers of land use change and deforestation in the tropics [1-4. This expansion provides significant economic earnings for producer countries, corporations and smallholders, but at the cost of negative externalities within and beyond the landscapes in which oil palm is grown [5, 6. Stakeholders and decision makers need to devise and adopt `green¿ development trajectories that balance better development and conservation goals in an environment with pervasive uncertainties [1, 7. A better understanding of socio-economic and ecological processes that shape environmental outcomes and the feedbacks that such outcomes impose on society will help chart a path towards more sustainable and inclusive futures [8. We propose that the resilience of a socio-ecological system can be improved by (1) integrated models of the future of biodiversity and ecosystem services at the landscape level over a decadal time span, that are (2) informed by multiple stakeholder perspectives and developed through participatory modelling approaches and (3) embedded in the decision making processes at interrelated district, national and international scales to help stakeholders navigate and explore possible alternative futures. We draw on the interdisciplinary nature of our consortium, and our collective presence in several countries, to undertake a longterm comparative project that spans regional contexts. The novelty of this proposal lies in designing an integrative simulation platform based on extensive empirical data that effectively couples social and ecological dynamics. This platform can facilitate the establishment of a common worldview among stakeholders and serve as the basis for better decision making, in which trade-offs involving ecosystem services within alternative oil palm development pathways are carefully considered.