Characterizing Crop Distribution and the Impact on Forest Conservation in Central Africa

Ozigis, MS, Wich, S, Abdolshahnejad, M, Descals, A, Szantoi, Z, Sheil, D and Meijaard, E (2025) Characterizing Crop Distribution and the Impact on Forest Conservation in Central Africa. Remote Sensing, 17 (11).

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Abstract

While the role of expanding agriculture in deforestation and the loss of other natural ecosystems is well known, the specific drivers in the context of small- and large-scale agriculture remain poorly understood. In this study, we employed satellite data and a deep learning algorithm to map the agricultural landscape of Central Africa (Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon) into large- (including for plantations and intensively cultivated areas) and small-scale tree crops and non-tree crop cover. This permits the assessment of forest loss between the years 2000 and 2022 as a result of small- and large-scale agriculture. Thematic [user’s] accuracy ranged between 91.2 ± 2.5 percent (large-scale oil palm) and 17.8 ± 3.9 percent (large-scale non-tree crops). Small-scale tree crops achieved relatively low accuracy (63.5 ± 5.9 percent), highlighting the difficulties of reliably mapping crop types at a regional scale. In general, we observed that small-scale agriculture is fifteen times the size of large-scale agriculture, as area estimates of small-scale non-tree crops and small-scale tree crops ranged between 164,823 ± 4224 km2 and 293,249 ± 12,695 km2, respectively. Large-scale non-tree crops and large-scale tree crops ranged between 20,153 ± 1195 km2 and 7436 ± 280 km2, respectively. Small-scale cropping activities represent 12 percent of the total land cover and have led to dramatic encroachment into tropical moist forests in the past two decades in all six countries. We summarized key recommendations to help the forest conservation effort of existing policy frameworks.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	0203 Classical Physics; 0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience; 0909 Geomatic Engineering; 3701 Atmospheric sciences; 3709 Physical geography and environmental geoscience; 4013 Geomatic engineering
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General) S Agriculture > SD Forestry
Divisions:	Biological and Environmental Sciences (from Sep 19)
Publisher:	MDPI
Date of acceptance:	27 May 2025
Date of first compliant Open Access:	6 June 2025
Date Deposited:	06 Jun 2025 09:27
Last Modified:	06 Jun 2025 09:30
DOI or ID number:	10.3390/rs17111958
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/26535

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