Africa's forested areas – an estimated 14 % of the global forest area – are continuing to decline at an increasing rate – mostly because of human activities to convert forest land for economic purposes.
Africa's forested areas – an estimated 14 % of the global forest area – are continuing to decline at an increasing rate – mostly because of human activities to convert forest land for economic purposes. As natural forests are important CO2 and biodiversity reservoirs, this development has a significant impact on climate change and effects the integrity of nature. To intervene in a targeted manner in the interests of climate protection and biodiversity, there has been a lack of sufficiently good data and detailed knowledge of the various forms of subsequent utilisation of deforested areas to track where forest-related conversions are happening and why. This has now been provided by a new study published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports and led by Robert N. Masolele and Johannes Reiche from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, Martin Herold from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, and their team. They used high-resolution satellite data, which they analysed on the basis of local reference data for 15 different types of land use – from crops such as coffee, cashew and rubber to pastureland and mining – with the help of deep learning methods. This enabled them to create the first high-resolution (accurate to five metres) and continental mapping of land use after deforestation across a wide area of the African continent, including wet and dry forests. This provides an improved basis for enhancing transparency on where commodity expansion leads to deforestation and for underpinning the strategic planning and implementation of deforestation mitigation measures by governments and forest protection agencies – both in Africa and in the EU, where a new EU-regulation aims to establish “deforestation-free supply chains” for products made from certain raw materials.
Background: Africa's Threatened Forests and the EU Deforestation Regulation
Over the last two decades, Africa has experienced a rapid decline in forest areas and tree cover. How land use develops after deforestation has a significant impact on forest biomass, biodiversity and the water cycle. These changes can vary depending on the location, intensity and spatial extent of forest loss. Understanding the spatio-temporal extent and motives of deforestation in Africa is critical to understanding and mitigating its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and the negative impacts on the forest ecosystem.
Read more at GFZ GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Helmholtz Centre
Image: Section of the world map focussing on Africa. Many coloured dots mark the location and type of different forms of land use after deforestation. (Credit: Screenshot of the app https://robertnag82.users.earthengine.app/view/africalu)
