Oil palm expansion is causing a steady decline in the forest frontier areas of Indonesia. Riau province in particular is one of the regions in which oil palm has become the dominant agricultural commodity and where smallholders have become an increasingly crucial factor in oil palm production and in shaping the landscape.

This study aims to provide a more holistic understanding of how drivers at various levels interplay and continue to feed the expansion of oil palm plantations with its associated land use and cover change (LUCC) and the impact on deforestation, local economic development and people's livelihoods in particular.

Ari Susanti (Cilacap, Indonesia, 1974) has been a lecturer at the Faculty of Forestry, Gadjah Mada University (UGM) since 1999. She obtained her PhD from Utrecht University,The Netherlands,on the basis of material presented in this book.