The Confluence of Protected Areas and Armed Conflict in Central Africa

Jake Lowenstein (jlowenstein@AMNH.org)

Grus japonensis

“In some respects, indeed, wildlife benefits from warfare: combatant armies effectively designate war zones as “off limits” to casual wanderers thus quarantining large areas of Africa from hunters and poachers.” Meyers (1979).

Virtually no work has been done to quantify large-scale patterns on the relationships between civil-conflict and biodiversity.

Project Idea

• To model the spatial-temporal relationships between protected areas and civil conflict in Central Africa 1960-present.

• Is conflict more likely to occur with proximity to PAs?

• Is conflict more likely to occur after PA designation?

Datasets

• World Database on Protected Areas

• Armed Conflict Location and Events Dataset (ACLED)

ACLED

• Designed for disaggregated conflict analysis and crisis mapping

•  Data are currently being coded from 1997 to early 2010 and the project continues to backdate conflict information for African states to the year of independence.

ACLED

• These data contain information on

• the date and location of conflict events

• the type of event

• the rebel and other groups involved

• changes in territorial control. 

ACLED

•  Events are derived from a variety of sources, mainly concentrating on reports from war zones, humanitarian agencies, and research publications.

• The precision of each event is coded.

• Data can be assimilated easily into any GIS, mapping program, or statistical package.