PAPFor

Bushfires

Yuzhou — 2022-07-26T17:53:00Z

In the high-altitude savannahs, fires have a negative impact on forests where they degrade the forest edges and undergrowth and also reduce the natural habitat of endemic species. This is particularly the case with late season fires. The dynamics of fires in the savannahs of the Nimba Massif are still poorly understood. It is therefore essential to implement a bushfire management strategy using satellite images.

Industrial mining

Yuzhou — 2022-07-26T17:51:32Z

Of all the landscapes supported by PAPFor, the Nimba Mountains landscape is the one most impacted by industrial mining. The Liberian part of the Nimba Mountains was exploited from the 1960s to 1980s. Much of the upper section of the massif was disfigured. This site is no longer exploited but other important forest areas are. On the Guinean side, a mining perimeter in the process of being exploited is at the heart of the massif and is on the immediate border of the Monts Nimba Integrated Reserve, which could threaten the Outstanding Universal Value of the World Heritage Site. Close collaboration with the miners is necessary to minimise the direct impacts (deforestation, diversion of watercourses, pollution) and indirect impacts (workers, increased hunting pressure) of mining.

Expansion of slash-and-burn agriculture

Yuzhou — 2022-07-26T17:49:35Z

The fields are usually made on land where almost all the trees are cut down and the vegetation burnt. The first few years the land is fertile, but gradually the soils become poorer. After three to four years, the farmer is forced to clear another area. The initial plot is abandoned, and it takes several decades of fallow state before it is workable again. In the Nimba Mountains landscape, farmers shorten the fallow period because of the need for land. This makes crops less productive and leads to the clearing of new forests, at the expense of the remaining natural forests.