A new study by our team, led by Insa Otte, on the conflict between biodiversity conservation in protected areas and agricultural development in West Africa has been published in the journal Natur und Landschaft.

The abstract: According to the Human Development Report 2020 of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), thirteen out of fifteen nations in West Africa are classified as having the lowest level of development. This situation goes hand in hand with reduced capacity to adapt to the challenges that climate change will bring to the region. Extreme precipitation events (heavy rainfall but also prolonged drought) repeatedly lead to reduced food production and thus to periods of hunger, particularly at the beginning of the rainy season. The high population growth in the region, on the other hand, places increasing demands on the food supply. In many places, the soil is already being exploited to such an extent that regeneration through the usual fallow is often no longer sufficient. Good farmland is becoming increasingly scarce. To this is added the increased need to protect natural areas, which are also affected by climate change. Poor management of protected areas, a lack of acceptance among the population and the increasing scarcity of free land for widespread self-sufficiency are forcing people to use areas intended for the preservation of the natural landscape. This article presents maps resulting from land-use analyses in West Africa and shows the spatio-temporal interactions between land use, biodiversity and climate.

You can find the article here: https://shop.kohlhammer.de/erhaltung-der-biodiversitat-in-schutzgebieten-und-agrarwirtschaft-in-westafrika-in-zeiten-des-klimawandels-978-3-00-154324-0.html