Consequences of the Armed Conflict, Forced Human Displacement, and Land Abandonment on Forest Cover Change in Colombia: A Multi-scaled Analysis

Background

The majority of forest-cover change research examines the drivers, patterns, and rates of deforestation yet there is limited attention given to the ecosystem recovery, particularly in abandoned agricultural lands. As the authors stress, forest cover change as a whole - both deforestation and reforestation - need to be examined since both effect biodiversity, soil conservation, carbon sequestration, and carbon emission. Using Colombia as a case-study, this article uniquely examine the effect of environmental, demographic, and socio-economic variables on forest-cover change at country, biome, and ecoregion scales.

Goals & Methods

The goal of this study is to analyze woody vegetation change, including deforestation and reforestation, throughout Colombia, incoporating environmental and socioeconomic variables as well as the country's history with armed conflict. The study focused on over 1,000 muncipalities throughout Colombia between 2001 and 2019, conducting land-use mapping and analyzing woody covery dynamics in each. 

Conclusions & Takeaways

The study found that Colombia had a net gain in woody vegetation cover between 2001 and 2010.  The authors aruge that enviornmental factors best explaine reforestation and deforestion at the regional scale while the demographic variables were more important at the biome and ecoregion scales, likely due to the country's history with armed conflict and forced displacement. The article overall shows the complexity for forest-cover change and thus a multi-scale and multi-variate approach proves insightful.