War and deforestation in Sierra Leone

Robin Burgess, Edward Miguel and Charlotte Stanton

Department of Economics, Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley

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.

Keywords: Life on Land; Peace; Justice and Strong Institutions; deforestation; civil war; Sierra Leone; Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-09-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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