Impacts of civil conflict on primary forest habitat in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1990–2010

Nackoney, Janet; Molinario, Giuseppe; Potapov, Peter; Turubanova, Svetlana; Hansen, Matthew C.; Furuichi, Takeshi

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2013.12.033

Cited by 105 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 49 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This pattern has also been found by other studies that have examined the effect of civil war on the environment, like those in the South Sudan-Uganda border region and north Darfur, Sudan [2,17]. Our findings are consistent with other conflict-environment relationship research, which found deforestation through forest-based livelihood activities (fuel wood, charcoal) and informal settlement by IDP residents were major drivers of landscape change at the urban-bush interface [4,20].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Impacts on the Urban Environment: Land Cover Change Trajectories and Landscape Fragmentation in Post-War Western Area, Sierra Leone

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An influential underlying driver of human-induced landscape change is civil war and other forms of conflict that cause human displacement. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) increase environmental pressures at their destination locations while reducing them at their origins. This increased pressure presents an environment for increased land cover change (LCC) rates and landscape fragmentation. To test whether this hypothesis is correct, this research sought to understand LCC dynamics in the Western Area of Sierra Leone from 1976 to 2011, a period including pre-conflict, conflict, and post-conflict eras, using Landsat and SPOT satellite imagery. A trajectory analysis of classified images compared LCC trajectories before and during the war with after the war (2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011). Over the 35-year period, the built-up land class rapidly increased, in parallel with an increase in urban and peri-urban agriculture. During the war, urban and peri-urban agriculture became a major livelihood activity for displaced rural residents to make the region food self-sufficient, especially when the war destabilised food production activities. The reluctance of IDPs to return to their rural homes after the war caused an increased demand for land driven by housing needs. Meanwhile, protected forest and other forest declined. A significant finding to emerge from this research is that landscape fragmentation increased in conjunction with declining forest cover while built-up areas aggregated. This has important implications for the region's flora, fauna, and human populations given that other research has shown that landscape fragmentation affects the landscape's ability to provide important ecosystem services.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Impacts on the Urban Environment: Land Cover Change Trajectories and Landscape Fragmentation in Post-War Western Area, Sierra Leone

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Logging and forests destruction to other purpose threaten greatly the preservation of several protected areas in Africa [26]. This is mainly due to the strong increase in population but also problems of political instability.…”

Section: Armed Conflicts and Protected Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest Dynamics in the North of the Classified Forest of Haut-Sassandra During the Period of Armed Conflicts in Ivory Coast

Kouakou¹

2015

AJLS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ivory Coast (or Côte d'Ivoire) has experienced a succession of political and military crises from 2002 to 2011. This has resulted in a general degradation of the environment. In rural areas, the natural formations such classified forest of Haut-Sassandra (CFHS) in the West Central, underwent severe human pressure. This study, which took place in the northern part of the CFHS, aimed to determine the spatial and temporal evolution of the forest and its floristic composition during this time of conflicts. Two satellite images dated from 2001 and 2013 were the subject of a supervised classification from the maximum likelihood algorithm. Floristic surveys were used to determine the current state floristic diversity of CFHS compared to the situation prior to the conflicts. The results show that forest areas, representing 94 % of the area in 2001, increased to 34 % in 2013, representing an annual rate of 5 % of deforestation. About 13 % of species recorded before the conflict had disappeared in 2013. However, with 239 inventoried northern of CFHS remains a refuge area of the Ivorian plant diversity.

show abstract

“…In conflict areas from central Africa, investment in agriculture and livestock production was limited, importation of food was minimal, and locally harvested bushmeat therefore played a major role in sustaining some level of food security as observed in Central African Republic (Fargeot 2010) and in Democratic Republic of Congo (de Merode and Cowlishaw 2006, van Vliet et al 2012, Nackoney et al 2014. Indeed, bushmeat is an easily available, affordable, and nutritious wild food (van Vliet et al 2017) and can act as a safety net during periods of shortage or shock (Brown 2003, de Merode et al 2004, Schulte-Herbrüggen et al 2013) However, evidence of unsustainable hunting (Abernethy et al 2016, Fa et al 2016, Ripple et al 2016) suggests a continued reliance on bushmeat in postconflict urban areas may not be sustainable, and hence endanger long-term food security and negatively affect human health through disease spillovers (Kurpiers et al 2016), causing another burden for impoverished urban populations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trends in bushmeat trade in a postconflict forest town: implications for food security

Vliet¹,

Schulte‐Herbrüggen²,

Muhindo³

et al. 2017

E&S

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ABSTRACT. Food insecurity and malnutrition can be major, yet often overlooked, consequences of armed conflicts because of the disruption of rural-urban trade networks and human migration toward safe urban centers. Bushmeat has been shown to act as an important safety net for conflict-affected urban populations, contributing the provisioning of basic needs and postconflict peace building efforts. However, the widely documented unsustainability of bushmeat hunting questions whether reliance of an urban population on bushmeat can be sustained for prolonged periods. To assess the potential contribution of bushmeat to sustainable food systems and peace building processes in a postconflict setting in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we use bushmeat trade data from the Kisangani market collected during three annual surveys in 2002, 2008/2009, and 2015/2016. Overall, we found a decreasing supply of bushmeat that, combined with an increasing human population size, limited the contribution of bushmeat to food security. Although bushmeat was the cheapest source of animal protein available in 2002, substitutes became more affordable over time, thereby reducing the need for bushmeat, especially among the urban poor. Finally, assessing the sustainability of bushmeat supply showed an ambiguous pattern depending on the indicator used, which may have been influenced by changes in the geographical trade routes, possibly mediating negative effects of local resource depletion on urban bushmeat supplies. This study provides insights into the contribution and the sustainability of bushmeat to urban postconflict food security. At the same time we also highlight the need for improved understanding of temporal supply/trade trajectories and especially the interaction between the sustainability of bushmeat harvest and the availability of affordable substitutes for ensuring sustainable food systems in support of peace building processes.

show abstract

Impacts of civil conflict on primary forest habitat in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1990–2010

Cited by 105 publications

References 49 publications

Impacts on the Urban Environment: Land Cover Change Trajectories and Landscape Fragmentation in Post-War Western Area, Sierra Leone

Impacts on the Urban Environment: Land Cover Change Trajectories and Landscape Fragmentation in Post-War Western Area, Sierra Leone

Forest Dynamics in the North of the Classified Forest of Haut-Sassandra During the Period of Armed Conflicts in Ivory Coast

Trends in bushmeat trade in a postconflict forest town: implications for food security

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About