Agricultural abandonment and recultivation during and after the Chechen Wars in the northern Caucasus

He Yin (), Van Butsic, Johanna Buchner, Tobias Kuemmerle, Alexander Prishchepov (), Matthias Baumann, Eugenia V. Bragina, Hovik Sayadyan and Volker C. Radeloff
Additional contact information
He Yin: SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA
Van Butsic: Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California Berkeley, 101 Sproul Hall, Berkeley, CA 94704, USA
Johanna Buchner: SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA
Tobias Kuemmerle: Geography Department, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany and IRI THESys, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
Matthias Baumann: Geography Department, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
Eugenia V. Bragina: Wildlife Conservation Society, 2300, Southern Boulevard, Bronx Zoo, NY 10460-1099S, USA
Hovik Sayadyan: Department of Physical Geography, Yerevan State University, Yerevan, Armenia
Volker C. Radeloff: SILVIS Lab, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA

No 294, HiCN Working Papers from Households in Conflict Network

Abstract: Armed conflicts are globally widespread and can strongly influence societies and the environment. However, where and how armed conflicts affect agricultural land-use is not well-understood. The Caucasus is a multi-ethnic region that experienced several conflicts shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, most notably the two Chechen Wars, raising the question how agricultural lands were changed. Here, we investigated how the distance to conflicts and conflict intensity, measured as the number of conflicts and the number of casualties, affected agricultural land abandonment and subsequent re-cultivation, by combining social, environmental and economic variables with remotely-sensed maps of agricultural change. We applied logistic and panel regression analyses for both the First Chechen War (1994-1996) and the Second Chechen War (1999-2009) and interacted conflict distance with conflict intensity measures. We found that agricultural lands closer to conflicts were more likely to be abandoned and less likely to be re-cultivated, with stronger effects for the First Chechen War. Conflict intensity was positively correlated with agricultural land abandonment, but the effects differed based on distance to conflicts and the intensity measure. We found little re-cultivation after the wars, despite abundant subsidies, indicating the potentially long-lasting effects of armed conflicts on land-use. Overall, we found a clear relationship between the Chechen Wars and agricultural land abandonment and re-cultivation, illustrating the strong effects of armed conflicts on agriculture.

Keywords: Agricultural land abandonment; armed conflict; ethnic conflict; land-use change; re-cultivation; warfare. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-cis
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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