Islands of trees in oil palm plantations can significantly increase biodiversity within five years without reducing productivity. This has been shown by an experiment, which has been running for over ten years in Indonesia as part of the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) "EFForTS" at the University of Göttingen. An international team of researchers led by Göttingen planted experimental islands of trees in plantations on the island of Sumatra to counteract the species loss caused by the intensive cultivation of oil palms. The results have been published in the journal Nature.