Background:Palm oil consumption is potentially deleterious to human health, and its production has resulted in 11 million hectares of deforestation globally. Importing roughly 394,000 metric tons of palm oil in 2012 alone, the Burmese government has recently pushed for intensive oil palm development to sate domestic demand for consumption and become international market players. Given well-studied linkages between biodiversity loss and ecosystem instability, this study aims to characterize the nature of deforestation for oil palm production in Myanmar, its relationship to increased biodiversity loss, and contextualize the potential impacts of this loss on diets and human health in rural Myanmar.
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