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Indonesia is the leading global producer of crude palm oil. Mass production of palm oil requires large-scale land conversion, resulting in Indonesia having the world’s highest rate of annual primary forest loss. Given the contentious nature and scale of palm oil production, this article considers Indonesia as a variant of the developmental patrimonialism model often applied to African countries. Developmental patrimonialism in the Indonesian context suggests that state power — expressed through various discourse and policy coalitions — favours palm oil companies and seeks legitimation through claims about national economic benefits. This development model may lead to absolute poverty reduction, employment and tax revenue, but can also produce inequality, resource dependencies and environmental degradation. From the authors’ observations in Riau province, there is a mismatch between the national narrative of palm oil as a force for good and the conspicuous underinvestment in public services and infrastructure, which undermines the legitimacy of some palm oil industry claims. The complexity of village Riau casts further doubt on generalized claims about rural development. Local variance in Riau’s palm oil belt is attributed to, among other things, the complex nature of political patronage, uneven access to land, volatile pricing trends, problematic financing and loan schemes, and the role played by village cooperatives.

Fats extracted from plants and animals are an important and understudied part of the industrialization of the “global North” in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Demand for soap, lamp oil, candles, lubricants, and other products drove European and American efforts to extract fats from animals across the continents and oceans, and by the late nineteenth century a proportion of this fat entered the North’s food supply. Simultaneously, demand for edible and industrial fats appeared to be outstripping supplies. Plants emerged as an important source of fat in this period, as new technologies allowed plant fats to be transformed into more versatile and edible products. The transition to plant fats represented an important move down the food chain for Northern consumers, allowing for the efficient use of existing resources, as well as contributing to the ongoing extraction of raw materials from the tropics.

As a renewable alternative to fossil fuels, the industrial production of biodiesel urgently requires the development of efficient and recyclable solid base catalysts. In this study, the physicochemical properties and catalytic performance differences between MgO/Na[sub.2]CO[sub.3] and MgO/K[sub.2]CO[sub.3] catalysts were systematically compared using soybean oil as the raw material. By regulating the calcination temperature (500–700 °C), alcohol-to-oil ratio (3:1–24:1), and metal carbonate loading (10–50%), combined with N[sub.2] adsorption–desorption, CO[sub.2]-TPD, XRD, SEM-EDS, and cycling experiments, the regulatory mechanisms of the ionic radius differences between sodium and potassium on the catalyst structure and performance were revealed. The results showed that MgO/Na[sub.2]CO[sub.3]-600 °C achieved a FAME yield of 97.5% under optimal conditions, which was 1.7% higher than MgO/K[sub.2]CO[sub.3]-600 °C (95.8%); this was attributed to its higher specific surface area (148.6 m[sup.2]/g vs. 126.3 m[sup.2]/g), homogeneous mesoporous structure, and strong basic site density. In addition, the cycle stability of MgO/K[sub.2]CO[sub.3] was significantly lower, retaining only 65.2% of the yield after five cycles, while that of MgO/Na[sub.2]CO[sub.3] was 88.2%. This stability difference stems from the disparity in their solubility in the reaction system. K[sub.2]CO[sub.3] has a higher solubility in methanol (3.25 g/100 g at 60 °C compared to 1.15 g/100 g for Na[sub.2]CO[sub.3]), which is also reflected in the ion leaching rate (27.7% for K[sup.+] versus 18.9% for Na[sup.+]). This study confirms that Na[sup.+] incorporation into the MgO lattice can optimize the distribution of active sites. Although K[sup.+] surface enrichment can enhance structural stability, the higher leaching rate leads to a rapid decline in catalyst activity, providing a theoretical basis for balancing catalyst activity and durability in sustainable biodiesel production.

Developing reusable and easy-to-operate biocatalysts is of significant interest in biodiesel production. Here, magnetic whole-cell catalysts constructed through immobilizing recombinant Escherichia coli cells (containing MAS1 lipase) into Fe[sub.3]O[sub.4]–chitosan magnetic microspheres (termed MWCC@MAS1) were used for fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) production from waste cooking oil (WCO). During the preparation process of immobilized cells, the effects of chitosan concentration and cell concentration on their activity and activity recovery were investigated. Optimal immobilization was achieved with 3% (w/v) chitosan solution and 10 mg wet cell/mL cell suspension. Magnetic immobilization endowed the whole-cell catalysts with superparamagnetism and improved their methanol tolerance, enhancing the recyclability of the biocatalysts. Additionally, we studied the effects of catalyst loading, water content, methanol content, and reaction temperature on FAME yield, optimizing these parameters using response surface methodology and Box–Behnken design. An experimental FAME yield of 89.19% was gained under the optimized conditions (3.9 wt% catalyst loading, 22.3% (v/w) water content, 23.0% (v/w) methanol content, and 32 °C) for 48 h. MWCC@MAS1 demonstrated superior recyclability compared to its whole-cell form, maintaining about 86% of its initial productivity after 10 cycles, whereas the whole-cell form lost nearly half after just five cycles. These results suggest that MWCC@MAS1 has great potential for the industrial production of biodiesel.

Conservation non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and firms have been promoting global voluntary standards, such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), to produce environmentally responsible goods in tropical countries. This research seeks to understand the strategies and the effectiveness of conservation NGOs with respect to the RSPO. Our research documents that the conservation NGOs, when engaging with the RSPO, may be divided into four categories based on the type of resources mobilised and the conservation goals: 1) ‘Collaborative NGOs’ seek to change the system from within by providing scientific research-based information, by holding strategic positions and by creating rules; 2) ‘Opponent’ remains outside the RSPO while using it as a platform for public campaigns; 3) ‘Opportunistic’ focuses on conserving geographical areas by adopting either collaborative or opponent strategies to reach their goals; and 4) ‘Sceptic’ supports communities to secure local land rights. These NGOs have implemented strategies that strengthened RSPO’s institution. However, the institutionalisation of the RSPO prevents the NGOs from reaching their goals for three reasons: 1) individual NGOs cannot change strategy; 2) NGOs using different engagement strategies are unable to collaborate; and 3) the sceptic NGOs are structurally excluded from the RSPO, though local land rights are a fundamental matter of concern for biodiversity conservation. NGOs would be more effective in reaching their goals either by focussing on their initial conservation objectives or by strategically collaborating with each other outside the structures of the RSPO.