Conservation and Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo: The Impacts of Warfare, Mining, and Protected Areas on Deforestation
Publisher: Biological Conservation
Author(s): Van Butsic, MathÃas Baumann, Anja Shortland, Sarah Walker, and Tobias Kuemmerle
Date: 2015
Topics: Extractive Resources, Land, Renewable Resources
Countries: Congo (DRC)
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), home of the second largest tropical forest in the world, has experienced 20 years of violent conflict, resulting in the death of over 100,000 combatants and up to 5 million civilians. Expanding mining concessions also threaten the DRC's forest, even though nearly 12% of it is under some form of protection. In this study, we used spatially-explicit data on conflict, mining, and protected areas, along with a host of control variables, to estimate the impacts of these factors on forest cover loss from 1990 to 2010. Through a panel instrumental variables approach we found that: i) conflict increased forest cover loss, ii) mining concessions increased forest cover loss, but in times of conflict this impact was lessened, and iii) protected areas reduced forest cover loss, even in high conflict regions. Our results thus suggest that policy interventions designed to reduce violent conflict may have the co-benefit of reducing deforestation, especially in areas with low mining potential. Likewise, protected areas can be effective even in times of war.