TY - JOUR
T1 - Illicit Drivers of Land Use Change
T2 - Narcotrafficking and Forest Loss in Central America
AU - Tellman, Beth
AU - Sesnie, Steven E.
AU - Magliocca, Nicholas R.
AU - Nielsen, Erik A.
AU - Devine, Jennifer A.
AU - McSweeney, Kendra
AU - Jain, Meha
AU - Wrathall, David J.
AU - Dávila, Anayasi
AU - Benessaiah, Karina
AU - Aguilar-Gonzalez, Bernardo
N1 - Funding Information:
Thanks to Lorena Melchor, Nate Curritt, Gonzalo Tapia, Angela Chevez, and students who georeferenced and digitized the media data: Northern Arizona University: Leah Manak, Hannah Russell, Alana Weber, Rafael Ramirez; Oregon State University, Olivia Cameron; Texas State University, Paepin Goff, Sabrina Chapa, and Alejandro Cascante; University of Colorado, Fernando Estrada Pinon. This study was funded by the American Association of Geographers Human Dimensions of Global Change (HGDC) Field Award, The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation (NSF) [ DBI-1052875 ], The College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University and NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates program (NSF OCE-1758000), PEGASuS/Future Earth, funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Science Program and the NOMIS Foundation , NSF under Grant No. 1414052 , National Science Foundation (NSF) EAGER ISN #1837698, and The Open Societes Foundation's Global Drug Policy Program. The findings and conclusions in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government.
Funding Information:
Thanks to Lorena Melchor, Nate Curritt, Gonzalo Tapia, Angela Chevez, and students who georeferenced and digitized the media data: Northern Arizona University: Leah Manak, Hannah Russell, Alana Weber, Rafael Ramirez; Oregon State University, Olivia Cameron; Texas State University, Paepin Goff, Sabrina Chapa, and Alejandro Cascante; University of Colorado, Fernando Estrada Pinon. This study was funded by the American Association of Geographers Human Dimensions of Global Change (HGDC) Field Award, The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation (NSF) [DBI-1052875], The College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University and NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates program (NSF OCE-1758000), PEGASuS/Future Earth, funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's Science Program and the NOMIS Foundation, NSF under Grant No. 1414052, National Science Foundation (NSF) EAGER ISN #1837698, and The Open Societes Foundation's Global Drug Policy Program. The findings and conclusions in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2020/7
Y1 - 2020/7
N2 - Illegal activity, such as deforestation for illicit crops for cocaine production, has been inferred as a cause of land change. Nonetheless, illicit activity is often overlooked or difficult to incorporate into causal inference models of land change. Evidence continues to build that narcotrafficking plays an important, yet often unreported, role in forest loss. This study presents a novel strategy to meet the challenge of estimating the causal effect of illicit activity in land change using consolidated news media reports to estimate the relationship between drug trafficking and accelerated forest loss in Central America. Drug trafficking organizations engage in illegal land transactions, money laundering, and territorial control that can manifest as forest conversion to agriculture or pasture land uses. Longitudinal data on 50 sub-national units over a period of 16 years (2001-2016) are used in fixed effects regressions to estimate the role of narcotrafficking in forest loss. Two narcotrafficking activity proxies were developed as explanatory variables of forest loss: i) an “official” proxy from drug seizures data within 14 sub-national units; and, ii) an “unofficial” proxy developed from georeferenced news media accounts of narcotrafficking events. The effect of narcotrafficking was systematically compared to the other well-known causes of forest loss, such as rural population growth and other conventional drivers. Both proxies indicate narcotrafficking is a statistically significant (p<0.01) contributor to forest loss in the region, particularly in Nicaragua (p<0.05, official proxy), Honduras (p<0.05, media proxy), and Guatemala (p<0.05, media proxy). Narcotrafficking variables explain an additional 5% (media proxy) and 9% (official proxy) of variance of forest loss not captured by conventional models. This study showed the ability of news media data to capture the signal of illicit activity in land use changes such as forest loss. The methods employed here could be used to estimate the causal effect of illicit activities in other land and environmental systems. Our results suggest that current drug policy, which concentrates drug trafficking in remote areas of very high cultural and environmental value, has helped to accelerate the loss of Central America's remaining forests.
AB - Illegal activity, such as deforestation for illicit crops for cocaine production, has been inferred as a cause of land change. Nonetheless, illicit activity is often overlooked or difficult to incorporate into causal inference models of land change. Evidence continues to build that narcotrafficking plays an important, yet often unreported, role in forest loss. This study presents a novel strategy to meet the challenge of estimating the causal effect of illicit activity in land change using consolidated news media reports to estimate the relationship between drug trafficking and accelerated forest loss in Central America. Drug trafficking organizations engage in illegal land transactions, money laundering, and territorial control that can manifest as forest conversion to agriculture or pasture land uses. Longitudinal data on 50 sub-national units over a period of 16 years (2001-2016) are used in fixed effects regressions to estimate the role of narcotrafficking in forest loss. Two narcotrafficking activity proxies were developed as explanatory variables of forest loss: i) an “official” proxy from drug seizures data within 14 sub-national units; and, ii) an “unofficial” proxy developed from georeferenced news media accounts of narcotrafficking events. The effect of narcotrafficking was systematically compared to the other well-known causes of forest loss, such as rural population growth and other conventional drivers. Both proxies indicate narcotrafficking is a statistically significant (p<0.01) contributor to forest loss in the region, particularly in Nicaragua (p<0.05, official proxy), Honduras (p<0.05, media proxy), and Guatemala (p<0.05, media proxy). Narcotrafficking variables explain an additional 5% (media proxy) and 9% (official proxy) of variance of forest loss not captured by conventional models. This study showed the ability of news media data to capture the signal of illicit activity in land use changes such as forest loss. The methods employed here could be used to estimate the causal effect of illicit activities in other land and environmental systems. Our results suggest that current drug policy, which concentrates drug trafficking in remote areas of very high cultural and environmental value, has helped to accelerate the loss of Central America's remaining forests.
KW - Central America
KW - Deforestation
KW - Illicit activity
KW - Land use change
KW - Narcotrafficking
KW - News media analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086923224&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85086923224&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102092
DO - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102092
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85086923224
SN - 0959-3780
VL - 63
JO - Global Environmental Change
JF - Global Environmental Change
M1 - 102092
ER -