Political-military crisis and forest fragmentation in the Mont Péko national Park in Côte d'Ivoire

Abstract

In Côte d'Ivoire, the political-military crisis from 2002 to 2011 caused an intensification of human pressure on certain protected areas. This increased pressure has led to significant deforestation in the Mont Péko national Park. However, the impact of disturbances on the forest cover structure of this park is little known. The purpose of this study was to document the impact of the crisis on the fragmentation of the forest cover of Mont Péko national Park in order to contribute to its rehabilitation. Thus, the structural dynamics of the landscape were analyzed using metrics of landscape ecology derived from four thematic digital maps from Landsat satellite imagery, throughout the periods before, during and after the crisis. Analysis of landscape spatial transformation processes between 1988 and 2016 showed a growing trend in forest cover fragmentation. Statistics on selected landscape metrics were produced to quantify the structural changes resulting from this fragmentation. Analysis of landscape metrics showed a significant increase in the level of fragmentation of forest cover during and after the period of crisis. The overall structural dynamics of the landscape of the Mont Péko national Park during the periods studied reveals a fragmentation of the forest at the expense of the creation of cocoa plantations. There is therefore an urgent need to strengthen the supervisory capacity of managers in order to eradicate the scourge of cocoa cultivation in the Mont Péko national Park.

Keywords

• remote sensing
• conflict
• forest
• landscape metric
• protected area
• Mont Péko