IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/ito/pchaps/277211.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Drugs and Biodiversity Loss: Narcotraffic-Linked Landscape Change in Guatemala

In: Forest Degradation Under Global Change

Author

Listed:
  • Steven N. Winter
  • Gillian Eastwood
  • Manuel A. Barrios-Izas

Abstract

Characteristic of the Anthropocene, human impacts have resulted in worldwide losses in forested land cover, which can directly and indirectly drive biodiversity loss. The global illicit drug trade is one source of deforestation directly implicated with habitat loss in Central America, typically for drug trafficking and livestock production for money laundering. Given reports of deforestation in Central America linked to narcotraffic, we explored vegetation changes within Guatemala's highly biodiverse Maya Biosphere Reserve by examining trends suggestive of deforestation in a protected area. As such, we collected satellite-derived data in the form of enhanced vegetation index (EVI), as well as history of burned areas, published human-"footprint" data, official population density, and artificial light activity in Laguna del Tigre National Park from 2002 to 2020 for descriptive analysis. We found consistent reductions in EVI and trends of anomalous losses of vegetation despite a baseline accounting for variation within the park. Analyses revealed weak correlations (R2

Suggested Citation

  • Steven N. Winter & Gillian Eastwood & Manuel A. Barrios-Izas, 2023. "Drugs and Biodiversity Loss: Narcotraffic-Linked Landscape Change in Guatemala," Chapters, in: Pavel Samec (ed.), Forest Degradation Under Global Change, IntechOpen.
    • Handle: RePEc:ito:pchaps:277211
    DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.107152
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/83894
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5772/intechopen.107152?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    deforestation; narcotrafficking; biodiversity loss; money laundering; habitat; enhanced vegetation index;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q50 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ito:pchaps:277211. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Slobodan Momcilovic (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.intechopen.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.