Independent oil palm smallholders' knowledge and attitude towards biodiversity conservation and the willingness to participate in environmentally certification schemes in Kuala Langat, Selangor

Oil palm plantation expanding has altered the natural landscape. Oil palm monocultures become a dominant landscape in Southeast Asia especially Malaysia. Oil palm plays an important role to Malaysian economy and has attracted the attention of local grower. Oil palm plantation in Malaysia can be divided into two types of cultivation namely estate plantation and smallholding. This study was done in Kuala Langat, Selangor. The main objective of this study was to determine smallholder’s attitude and knowledge on farmland biodiversity and also to determine smallholder’s willingness to participate in certification scheme and take action in biodiversity conservation. The study took about a month of interviewing 50 respondents around Kuala Langat among independent smallholders. The results of this study show that independent smallholder’s knowledge about biodiversity was plentiful. Moreover, the types of wild animals found in their farmlands also abundant and some of it is a threatened and protected species. It is critically to note that the complexity of the independent smallholder’s farmland is higher than large scale smallholdings have. Data analysing by using One Sample t-test to compared the net revenue of smallholders with other previous study show the insignificant result (p=0.063). Another One Sample t-test was done to compare the fees that independent smallholders willing to pay to participate with the annual fees of RSPO stated. It shows the result was significant (p=0.001). Thus, it can be conclude that due to the low price of palm oil in the market and an expensive annual fees of existed certificate such as RSPO, the smallholders can’t afford to paid and joining the conservation schemes.

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