Non-technical summary Oil palm has been criticized for being an environmentally unfriendly oil crop. In recent decades, oil palm plantations have extended into conservation landscapes, causing severe environmental damage and harming biodiversity. Nevertheless, oil palm remains a highly productive oil crop from which most of the world's vegetable oil is produced. Therefore, measuring the environmental impact of oil palm plantations and identifying suitable land to support its sustainable development is crucial.Technical summary To meet the rising global palm oil demand sustainably, we tracked annual land cover changes in oil palm plantation and mapped areas worldwide suitable for sustainable oil palm cultivation. From 1982 to 2019, 3.6 Mha of forests were converted to oil palm plantations. Despite a recent decline in overall conversion, the shift from forest to oil palm plantations has become increasingly more common over the last decade, rising from 14.1 to 34.5% between 2009 and 2019. During 1982-2019, 2.23 Mha of peatland and 0.1 Mha of protected areas were converted for oil palm plantations. The potential sustainable land amounts to 103.5-317.9 Mha (Asia: 44.6-105.1 Mha, Africa: 34.7-96.4 Mha, and Latin America: 35.2-116.5 Mha). Future oil palm expansion is anticipated to take place in countries like Brazil, Nigeria, Colombia, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Ghana, where more sustainable land is available for cultivation. Malaysia, on the other hand, is about to exceed the area of sustainable cultivation, and further expansion is not recommended. These findings can advance our understanding of the environmentally damaging impacts of oil palm and enhance the feasibility of sustainable oil palm development.Social media summary How should suitable land be chosen for the establishment of oil palm plantations to support the sustainable development of the oil palm plantation industry?

Indonesia and Malaysia produce the most palm oil in the world. The world's palm oil industry doubled in 1960-1990 and then increased steadily until 2020. However, the industry faces problems and challenges as a cause of environmental damage. Fertilizers and pesticides used in oil palm plantations and their processing waste are suspected of contaminating the environment with heavy metals. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become more widely used for environmental monitoring, particularly as a technology for tracking heavy metals on agricultural land in recent years. Previous studies claim several advantages of using this technology, such as fast operation and low cost. This study presents the state-of-the-art available UAV platforms for heavy metal tracking in the agricultural industry. Recent applications focus primarily on hyperspectral sensing and photogrammetric technique. In addition, the prospects for UAV technology to track heavy metal pollution in the palm oil industry are also analysed.