Human Dimensions of Land Use and Land Cover Change Related to Civil Unrest in the Imatong Mountains of South Sudan
Publisher: Applied Geography
Author(s): Virginia Gorsevski, Martha Geores, and Eric Kasischke
Date: 2012
Topics: Data and Technologies, Governance, Land, Peace Agreements, Renewable Resources
Countries: South Sudan
Civil unrest disrupts not only the lives of people in the impacted area, but also the environment in ways not well understood. While armed conflict generally has a negative impact on the immediate environment, the absence of people due to war can be beneficial to local ecosystems and wildlife. Lack of access to a warzone during conflict, however, makes it difficult to gather primary data on the effects of conflict in real time. Satellite imagery has been used successfully to document changes on the landscape during and after war, but additional information is needed to explain the underlying drivers of these observed changes in land use and land cover. To understand how human decisions and actions during war and peace impact land use and subsistence practices, we combined results from key informant interviews with observations made from remotely-sensed satellite imagery and compared expected results with findings in seven major thematic areas. In the high biodiversity region of the Imatong Mountains in South Sudan, we discovered that while some people fled the area during the various conflicts, many others escaped to higher ground to live off the resources available from the forest. Earlier studies indicated that the impact on forest cover during and after the war were minimal in the Imatong Mountains, and extensive in the nearby Dongotana Hills. Discussions with local inhabitants confirmed these findings and provided further insights for how migration and land use patterns impacted forest cover and wildlife in this volatile region.