IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/econwp/qt83h9d9gb.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

War and deforestation in Sierra Leone

Author

Listed:
  • Burgess, Robin
  • Miguel, Edward
  • Stanton, Charlotte

Abstract

The impact of armed conflict on the environment is of major public policy importance. We use a geographically disaggregated dataset of civil war violence together with satellite imagery of land cover to test whether war facilitated or prevented forest loss in Sierra Leone. The conflict data set allows us to establish where rebel groups were stationed and where battles and attacks occurred. The satellite data enables to us to monitor the change in forest cover (total, primary, and secondary) in all of Sierra Leone's 151 chiefdoms, between 1990 (prior to the war) and 2000 (just prior to its end). The results suggest that conflict in Sierra Leone acted as a brake on local deforestation: conflict-ridden areas experienced significantly less forest loss relative to their more conflict-free counterparts.

Suggested Citation

  • Burgess, Robin & Miguel, Edward & Stanton, Charlotte, 2015. "War and deforestation in Sierra Leone," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt83h9d9gb, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:econwp:qt83h9d9gb
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/83h9d9gb.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Salehyan, Idean & Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede, 2006. "Refugees and the Spread of Civil War," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(2), pages 335-366, April.
    2. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Canavire-Bacarreza, Gustavo & Diaz-Gutierrez, Julian Eduardo & Hanauer, Merlin M., 2018. "Unintended consequences of conservation: Estimating the impact of protected areas on violence in Colombia," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 46-70.
    2. Rachel A. Neugarten & Ranaivo A. Rasolofoson & Christopher B. Barrett & Ghislain Vieilledent & Amanda D. Rodewald, 2024. "The effect of a political crisis on performance of community forests and protected areas in Madagascar," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Castro-Nunez, Augusto & Mertz, Ole & Quintero, Marcela, 2016. "Propensity of farmers to conserve forest within REDD+ projects in areas affected by armed-conflict," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 22-30.
    4. Panel, Sophie & Pietri, Antoine, 2022. "God did not save the kings: Environmental consequences of the 1982 Falklands War," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    5. Hufschmidt, Patrick & Ume, Chukwuma Otum, 2023. "Conflicts and political intervention: Evidence from the anti-open grazing laws in Nigeria," Ruhr Economic Papers 1009, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    6. Prem, Mounu & Saavedra, Santiago & Vargas, Juan F., 2020. "End-of-conflict deforestation: Evidence from Colombia’s peace agreement," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    7. Andres Suarez & Paola Andrea Árias-Arévalo & Eliana Martínez-Mera, 2018. "Environmental sustainability in post-conflict countries: insights for rural Colombia," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 997-1015, June.
    8. Mihaylova, Iva, 2023. "Perpetuating the malign legacy of colonialism? Traditional chiefs’ power and deforestation in Sierra Leone," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    9. Richard A. Wadsworth & Aiah R. Lebbie, 2019. "What Happened to the Forests of Sierra Leone?," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-16, May.
    10. Shapiro, Aurélie C. & Bernhard, Katie P. & Zenobi, Stefano & Müller, Daniel & Aguilar-Amuchastegui, Naikoa & d'Annunzio, Rémi, 2021. "Proximate causes of forest degradation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo vary in space and time," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 2.
    11. Olukorede Abiona & Joseph B. Ajefu, 2023. "The impact of timing of in utero drought shocks on birth outcomes in rural households: evidence from Sierra Leone," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 1333-1362, July.
    12. Mariana Unda & Andrés Etter, 2019. "Conservation Opportunities of the Land Restitution Program Areas in the Colombian Post-Conflict Period," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-19, April.
    13. Barry REILLY & Rafael Isidro PARRA-PEÑA S., 2019. "Forests and Conflict in Colombia," Archivos de Economía 17507, Departamento Nacional de Planeación.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2016. "The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(7), pages 1802-1848, July.
    2. Silve, Arthur & Verdier, Thierry, 2018. "A theory of regional conflict complexes," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 434-447.
    3. Carmignani, Fabrizio & Kler, Parvinder, 2016. "The geographical spillover of armed conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 109-119.
    4. M. Christian Lehmann, 2020. "Aiding refugees, aiding peace?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(5), pages 1687-1704, September.
    5. Mehmet Pinar & Thanasis Stengos, 2021. "Democracy in the neighborhood and foreign direct investment," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 449-477, February.
    6. Crippa, Andrea & d'Agostino, Giorgio & Dunne, Paul & Pieroni, Luca, 2022. "Conflict as a Cause of Migration," MPRA Paper 112327, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Adama Bah, 2013. "Civil Conflicts as a Constraint to Regional Economic Integration in Africa," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(6), pages 521-534, December.
    8. Achim Ahrens, 2015. "Civil conflicts in Africa: Climate, economic shocks, nighttime lights and spill-over effects," SEEC Discussion Papers 1501, Spatial Economics and Econometrics Centre, Heriot Watt University.
    9. Albornoz, Facundo & Hauk, Esther, 2014. "Civil war and U.S. foreign influence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 64-78.
    10. Olaf J de Groot & Carlos Bozzoli & Anousheh Alamir & Tilman Brück, 2022. "The global economic burden of violent conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 59(2), pages 259-276, March.
    11. Martin-Shields, Charles P. & Stojetz, Wolfgang, 2019. "Food security and conflict: Empirical challenges and future opportunities for research and policy making on food security and conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 150-164.
    12. Vincenzo Bove & Petros G. Sekeris, 2011. "Economic Determinants of Third Party Intervention in Civil Conflict," Working Papers 1115, University of Namur, Department of Economics.
    13. Fabrizio Carmignani & Parvinder Kler, 2017. "The spillover of war in time and space: exploring some open issues," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(3), pages 273-288, January.
    14. Bosker, Maarten & de Ree, Joppe, 2014. "Ethnicity and the spread of civil war," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 206-221.
    15. Lopes da Fonseca, Mariana & Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 2015. "Re-evaluating the economic costs of conflicts," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 246, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    16. Diana Ricciulli-Marín, 2020. "The Fiscal Cost of Conflict: Evidence from La Violencia in Colombia," Cuadernos de Historia Económica 53, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    17. Vincent A. Floreani & Gladys López-Acevedo & Martín Rama, 2021. "Conflict and Poverty in Afghanistan’s Transition," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(10), pages 1776-1790, October.
    18. Gignoux, Jérémie & Menéndez, Marta, 2016. "Benefit in the wake of disaster: Long-run effects of earthquakes on welfare in rural Indonesia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 26-44.
    19. Ciccone, Antonio, 2018. "International Commodity Prices and Civil War Outbreak: New Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa and Beyond," CEPR Discussion Papers 12625, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Uribe-Castro, Mateo, 2019. "Expropriation of church wealth and political conflict in 19th century Colombia," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-1.

    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:cdl:econwp:qt83h9d9gb. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ibbrkus.html .

    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.