Climate change, cocoa migrations and deforestation in West Africa: What does the past tell us about the future?
Climate change, cocoa migrations and deforestation in West Africa: What does the past tell us about the future?
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西非的气候变化、可可迁移和森林砍伐：过去对未来有什么启示？
DOI：
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发表时间：
2014
影响因子：
6
通讯作者：
Kone Doffangui
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
F. Ruf;G. Schroth;Kone Doffangui
可可种植一直是西非森林砍伐的主要原因，特别是在世界主要可可生产国科特迪瓦。可可一直是森林砍伐后种植的“先锋作物”，农民通常不会重新种植老化的种植园，而是迁移到森林边界建立新的可可农场。二十世纪下半叶，在来自稀树草原的潜在可可种植者大规模移民的推动下，可可前沿从该国较干燥的东部转移到较湿润的西南部。有人认为，气候梯度是这些东西向迁徙的主要驱动力，而可可种植者通过用大片农田取代森林，在正反馈循环中导致了气候的进一步干燥。如果是这种情况，那么未来更加炎热和干燥的气候可能会继续将可可种植者推向次大陆更加湿润的西南部，科特迪瓦西南部和利比里亚的最后森林保护区是唯一剩下的目的地。根据对科特迪瓦主要可可种植区的长期降雨量测量的分析以及对可可农民关于其迁徙历史和动机的采访，我们认为气候和干旱一直是支持因素，但通常不是可可迁徙的主要驱动因素，可可迁徙主要是对可可种植林地可用性的反应。我们还表明，在 1970 年代和 1980 年代观察到的可可产区降雨量减少主要并不是对与可可种植相关的当地森林砍伐的反应，尽管森林砍伐可能导致了小气候变化。 1982/3 年干旱等极端气候也引发了农业实践的调整，例如重新种植和作物多样化。为了防止可可种植在气候炎热的情况下继续成为森林砍伐的驱动因素，政府和供应链参与者应抑制森林边界动态，并应帮助可可种植者采取更加集约化和多样化的种植方式，以农民自身的风险缓解和适应策略为基础，以适应环境变化。
Cocoa farming has been a major driver of deforestation in West Africa, notably in Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s leading cocoa producer. Cocoa has been a “pioneer crop” that was grown after forest clearing, and instead of replanting aging plantations, farmers usually migrated to the forest frontiers to establish a new cocoa farm. During the second half of the twentieth century, the cocoa frontier moved from the drier east to the wetter southwest of the country, fueled by massive immigration of prospective cocoa farmers from the savanna. It has been argued that the climate gradient was a major driver of these east–west migrations and that cocoa farmers, by replacing forest with farm land over vast areas, contributed to the further drying of the climate in a positive feedback cycle. If this were the case, then a hotter and drier future climate would likely continue to push cocoa farmers into the wetter southwest of the sub-continent, with the last forest reserves of southwestern Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia as the only remaining destinations. Based on an analysis of long-term rainfall measurements in major cocoa growing areas of Côte d’Ivoire and interviews with cocoa farmers about their history and motives of migration, we argue that climate and drought have been supporting factors, but not usually the main drivers of cocoa migrations, which were mostly a response to the perceived availability of forest land for planting. We also show that the observed decrease in rainfall in the cocoa regions during the 1970s and 1980s was not primarily a response to local deforestation related to cocoa farming, although deforestation may have caused microclimatic changes. Climate extremes like the 1982/3 drought have also triggered adaptations of farming practices like replanting and crop diversification. To prevent cocoa farming from continuing to act as a driver of deforestation in a hotter climate, governments and supply chain actors should discourage forest frontier dynamics and should help cocoa farmers adapt to environmental change by adopting more intensive and diversified farming practices, building on farmers’ own risk mitigation and adaptation strategies.