How is deforested land in Africa used?

Description

Africa’s forested areas – an estimated 14 % of the global forest area – are continuing to decline at an increasing rate – mostly because of human activities to convert forest land for economic purposes. As natural forests are important CO2 and biodiversity reservoirs, this development has a significant impact on climate change and effects the integrity of nature. To intervene in a targeted manner in the interests of climate protection and biodiversity, there has been a lack of sufficiently good data and detailed knowledge of the various forms of subsequent utilisation of deforested areas to track where forest-related conversions are happening and why. This has now been provided by a new study published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports and led by Robert N. Masolele and Johannes Reiche from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, Martin Herold from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, and their team.