Diverging forest land use dynamics induced by armed conflict across the tropics

Landholm, David M.; Pradhan, Prajal; Kropp, Jürgen P.

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.03.006

Cited by 72 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Interestingly, we found that the perception of human problems (Index 3) was significantly related to deforestation and guerrilla attacks (Table 3). Fergusson et al (2014) and Landholm et al (2019) also found a relationship between deforestation and forest conditions with armed conflict. Canavire-Bacarreza et al 2018showed that armed conflict exacerbated deforestation, especially in remote regions such as PAs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Perception of conservation strategies and nature’s contributions to people around Chingaza National Natural Park, Colombia

et al. 2020

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Summary A conventional conservation strategy is establishing protected areas to help combat anthropogenic and climate change impacts on tropical ecosystems, but the effectiveness of these measures is often hampered in upland areas by resource conflicts among armed groups, citizens and government institutions. Improved governance and community participation are key to effectively conserving these areas, yet little is known regarding citizen perceptions in such places. Here, a representative protected area in Colombia is used in order to analyse rural and urban citizen perceptions regarding conservation, conflicts with guerrilla groups and nature’s contributions to people (NCPs) around Chingaza National Natural Park. We used on-site, semi-structured in-person surveys, geospatial data and statistics to understand these perceptions and the roles of armed conflict and deforestation. Perceptions on ecosystem degradation were correlated with deforestation and past guerrilla attacks. Age and place of residence were influential pro-conservation factors, while younger respondents were most willing to invest time in conservation activities. Air purification and water supply and quality were the most identified NCPs and citizens differentiated conservation-related recreation activities from natural resource extraction. We suggest that the legacy of past armed conflict still affects conservation strategies and communities living near tropical highland protected areas.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Perception of conservation strategies and nature’s contributions to people around Chingaza National Natural Park, Colombia

et al. 2020

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“…ecocide) (Le Billon 2001, McNeely 2003, Hanson and Machlis 2008, Butsic et al 2015. As many studies have documented forest cover change during communal, intra-state, and inter-state conflicts (Stevens et al 2011, Gorsevski et al 2012, Wilson and Wilson 2013, Nackoney et al 2014, Butsic et al 2015, Gbanie et al 2018, Sung et al 2019, Yin et al 2019, the idiosyncratic and diverse effects of conflict on forest cover have become well-defined (Ordway 2015, Baumann and Kuemmerle 2016, Hanson 2018, Grima and Singh 2019, Landholm et al 2019. However, much less is known about forest cover change processes following the cessation of conflict or the signing of a peace agreement between warring factions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The end of gunpoint conservation: forest disturbance after the Colombian peace agreement

Murillo-Sandoval

Dexter

Hoek

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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In November 2016, after 52 years of armed conflict, the Colombian government and the primary rebel group, the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) reached a peace agreement. The agreement incorporated three changes to institutions governing forest land occupation and use: (a) the demobilization of FARC from forested places, (2) the future distribution of legal land titles and new road construction into forests, and (3) the eradication of illicit crops. However, we document unprecedented rates of forest disturbance in the months following the peace agreement in biodiversity hotspots across the country. Are the declaration of peace and the increased rates of forest disturbance related? Here, we present the first systematic assessment of the impact of the Colombian peace agreement on forest disturbance. Focusing on the Andes-Amazon Transition Belt (AATB), we used automated satellite image disturbance detection methods and ethnographic data to quantify and interpret forest cover change from 2010 to 2018 that span wartime, peace negotiation, and post-peace agreement stages. Our findings indicate that during the post-peace agreement period (2017-2018), the area of forest disturbance increased by 50% (about 238 000 ha) across the AATB in comparison with the four-year peace negotiation stage (2013-2016); these changes reflect the end of FARC-led gunpoint conservation in the region. Forest disturbance also spread deeper into the Amazon watershed and increased in area by 187% within the AATB's protected areas. We find that following the peace agreement and the withdrawal of FARC, key actors (viz. drug cartels, large landowners, campesinos and dissidents) with expectations of favorable land tenure policies swept into the region; this led to increases in large-scale cattle ranching, coca cultivation dispersal, and speculative illegal land markets each of which contributed to the widespread forest disturbance that we mapped. The rapid increase in forest disturbance occurred despite the interest of the international community in promoting forest conservation initiatives in the AATB and Colombia's existing conservation and land titling frameworks for public lands. Our findings underscore the need for conservation strategies sensitive to rapid institutional and demographic changes in the course of the peace agreement to prevent forests from becoming an unexpected casualty of premature and unstable peace.

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“…Stable isotopes studies in the tropics have frequently been constrained by numerous limitations, such as site remoteness, accessibility disruptions during extreme weather, interrupted monitoring (i.e., lack of consistent long-term time series), insufficient local funding, and a variety of socio-economic and political challenges (Landholm et al, 2019;Lee et al, 2019). The latter, in large degree, limits the reliability and robustness of temporal and spatial isotopic assessments (Sánchez- Murillo and Durán-Quesada, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracing Water Sources and Fluxes in a Dynamic Tropical Environment: From Observations to Modeling

et al. 2020

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Tropical regions cover approximately 36% of the Earth's landmass. These regions are home to 40% of the world's population, which is projected to increase to over 50% by 2030 under a remarkable climate variability scenario often exacerbated by El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and other climate teleconnections. In the tropics, ecohydrological conditions are typically under the influence of complex land-oceanatmosphere interactions that produce a dynamic cycling of mass and energy reflected in a clear partition of water fluxes. Here, we present a review of 7 years of a concerted and continuous water stable isotope monitoring across Costa Rica, including key insights learned, main methodological advances and limitations (both in experimental designs and data analysis), potential data gaps, and future research opportunities with a humid tropical perspective. The uniqueness of the geographic location of Costa Rica within the mountainous Central America Isthmus, receiving moisture inputs from the Caribbean Sea (windward) and the Pacific Ocean (complex leeward topography), and experiencing strong ENSO events, poses a clear advantage for the use of isotopic variations to underpin key drivers in ecohydrological responses. In a sequential approach, isotopic variations are analyzed from moisture transport, rainfall generation, and groundwater/surface connectivity to Bayesian and rainfall-runoff modeling. The overarching goal of this review is to provide a robust humid tropical example with a progressive escalation from common water isotope observations to more complex modeling outputs and applications to enhance water resource management in the tropics.

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Diverging forest land use dynamics induced by armed conflict across the tropics

Cited by 72 publications

References 33 publications

Perception of conservation strategies and nature’s contributions to people around Chingaza National Natural Park, Colombia

Perception of conservation strategies and nature’s contributions to people around Chingaza National Natural Park, Colombia

The end of gunpoint conservation: forest disturbance after the Colombian peace agreement

Tracing Water Sources and Fluxes in a Dynamic Tropical Environment: From Observations to Modeling

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