TY - JOUR
T1 - The effects of armed conflict on forest cover changes across temporal and spatial scales in the Colombian Amazon
AU - Bautista-Cespedes, Oscar V.
AU - Willemen, L.
AU - Castro-Nunez, Augusto
AU - Groen, T.A.
N1 - Funding Information:
We acknowledge the University of Twente for the UT–ITC excellence scholarship awarded To O. Bautista-Céspedes that partly founded this research. Thanks to A. Nowak, A. Coca-Castro, H. Kloosterman, J. Morales, A. Shahpurwala, the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. This research contributes to the project 18_III_106_COL_A_Sustainable productive strategies funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/6/22
Y1 - 2021/6/22
N2 - The Amazon rainforest covers roughly 40% of Colombia’s territory and has important global ecological functions. For more than 50 years, an internal war in the country has shaped this region. Peace negotiations between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) initiated in 2012 resulted in a progressive de-escalation of violence and a complete ceasefire in 2016. This study explores the role of different deforestation drivers including armed conflict variables, in explaining deforestation for three periods between 2001 and 2015. Iterative regression analyses were carried out for two spatial extents: the entire Colombian Amazon and a subset area which was most affected by deforestation. The results show that conflict variables have positive relationships with deforestation; yet, they are not among the main variables explaining deforestation. Accessibility and biophysical variables explain more variation. Nevertheless, conflict variables show divergent influence on deforestation depending on the period and scale of analysis. Based on these results, we develop deforestation risk maps to inform the design of forest conservation efforts in the post-conflict period.
AB - The Amazon rainforest covers roughly 40% of Colombia’s territory and has important global ecological functions. For more than 50 years, an internal war in the country has shaped this region. Peace negotiations between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) initiated in 2012 resulted in a progressive de-escalation of violence and a complete ceasefire in 2016. This study explores the role of different deforestation drivers including armed conflict variables, in explaining deforestation for three periods between 2001 and 2015. Iterative regression analyses were carried out for two spatial extents: the entire Colombian Amazon and a subset area which was most affected by deforestation. The results show that conflict variables have positive relationships with deforestation; yet, they are not among the main variables explaining deforestation. Accessibility and biophysical variables explain more variation. Nevertheless, conflict variables show divergent influence on deforestation depending on the period and scale of analysis. Based on these results, we develop deforestation risk maps to inform the design of forest conservation efforts in the post-conflict period.
KW - UT-Hybrid-D
KW - ITC-HYBRID
KW - ITC-ISI-JOURNAL-ARTICLE
U2 - 10.1007/s10113-021-01770-6
DO - 10.1007/s10113-021-01770-6
M3 - Article
SN - 1436-3798
VL - 21
SP - 1
EP - 16
JO - Regional environmental change
JF - Regional environmental change
IS - 70
ER -
