Is Rural Migration a Threat to Environmental Sustainability in Southern Burkina Faso?
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land degradation & development Land Degrad. Develop. (2009) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/ldr.910 IS RURAL MIGRATION A THREAT TO ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY IN SOUTHERN BURKINA FASO? I. OUEDRAOGO1*, P. SAVADOGO1,2, M. TIGABU1, R. COLE3, P. C. ODE´ N1 AND J.-M. OUADBA2 1Southern Swedish Forest Research Center, Tropical Silviculture and Seed Laboratory, Swedish, University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), PO Box 49 SE-230 53 Alnarp, Sweden 2De´partement Productions Forestie`res, Institut de l’Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique, 03 BP 7047, Ouagadougou 03, Burkina Faso 3Geography and Planning Department, Grand Valley State University, 1154 Au Sable Hall, Allendale, Michigan (MI) 49410-9403, USA Received 8 September 2008; Revised 5 January 2009; Accepted 6 January 2009 ABSTRACT There is growing evidence that population pressure on the land has become the most intractable problem in the developing countries where demand for food exceeds the food production capacity of the land. Southern Burkina Faso has experienced rapid population growth, mostly driven by immigration of farmers. This study was carried out in Sissili Province and used satellite images acquired over 31-year period, census and survey data to capture migration patterns and its impacts on land use change. Results showed that migrant population which accounted for only 3 per cent in the study area in 1976 shifted to 57 per cent in 2007. Migrant people were using improved technology to progressively convert forest land to cropland. Cropland increased at an annualized rate of 0Á46 per cent to the detriment of the dense forest and woodland which decreased at 0Á57 per cent per annum. Population growth was highly correlated with increasing area of cropland (r2 ¼ 0Á95, p ¼ 0Á014) and declining dense forest (r2 ¼ 0Á78) and woodland (r2 ¼ 0Á95) covers. It can be concluded that rural migration, driven by the relatively good soil and rainfall conditions in the recipient area, is accounted for deforestation in the study area. If rural migration is not checked, it will seriously degrade the environment. Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. key words: Burkina Faso; migration; land use change; population growth; wood cutting; fuel wood INTRODUCTION Thoughts on population–environment interactions have many historical antecedents, but neo-Malthusian and Boserupian notions are pre-eminent (Perz et al., 2005; Perz et al., 2006). Malthus (1798) argued that population growth leads to agricultural expansion and ultimately to land degradation and famine. This statement was later supported by Ehrlich (1968), Hardin (1968) and Meadows et al. (1972). Alternative approaches have emerged since Boseru¨p (1965) and Simon (1980) showed that population growth leads to sustainable land use via intensification due to technological improvement. More recently, Bilsborrow (2002) articulated the third possibility of a demographic-economic response via migration from crowded or degraded environments to frontier zones. New thoughts also emerge that the effect of population on environment depends on many things, including a gamut of cultural and political factors as well as the scale of observation (Gibson et al., 2000; Wood, 2002; Perz et al., 2005). In the tropics, rapid population growth constitutes the main force of change in land use (Ramankutty and Foley, 1999). Population growth in developing countries is generally associated with increased demand for food and fuelwood and also increased rural migration, which lead to high rates of forest losses (Lambin et al., 2003). Migration, in its various forms, is known to be the most important demographic factor causing land use change at time scale (Geist and Lambin, 2001; Lambin et al., 2003), operating as a significant driver with other non-demographic factors such as policies, consumption patterns, economic dynamics and globalization (Fearnside, 1997). * Correspondence to: I. Ouedraogo, Southern Swedish Forest Research Center, Tropical Silviculture and Seed Laboratory, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), PO Box 49 SE-230 53 Alnarp, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. I. OUEDRAOGO ET AL. In Burkina Faso, the total population shifted from 5Á6 million inhabitants in 1975 to 13Á7 million inhabitants in 2006 (INSD, 2007); out of this, 90 per cent practice rain-fed subsistence agriculture (Kra¨mer, 2002). Under such rapid growing population, demand for arable land to produce food may exceed the capacity of the country to provide land. The country is phytogeographically divided into four zones, namely the north-Sahelian, south- Sahelian, north-Sudanian and south-Sudanian zones. In the Sahelian zones, soils are generally poor with an unreliable distribution of the rainfall in space and time (400–600 mm yÀ1 within 2–3 months yÀ1). It is mainly in the Sudanian zones that are located in the southern, south-western and south-eastern parts of the country, where soils are fairly fertile and rainfall relatively abundant that agriculture is expanding due to an amplified rural–rural migration in search of available non-degraded land (Reenberg and Lund, 1998; Gray, 2005). During the last few decades, southern Burkina Faso has experienced a rapid population growth driven by high growth rate, declining mortality and mainly immigration, which was believed to have boosted the rapid growth of the population in this area (Howorth and O’Keefe, 1999; Henry et al., 2003). Migration to southern Burkina Faso started in the 1980s when the severe drought affected the northern and central regions of the country, inflicting significant losses in terms of crops and livestock to farmers (Reenberg and Lund, 1998; Gray, 2005; Ouedraogo, 2006a; Pare´ et al., 2008). From that period onwards, migrating to less drought affected areas (south, east and west of the country) has become per se an important livelihood diversification strategy. It allows to supplement subsistence economy and to have access to money, therefore, migrants can support their families’ education, health and building activities. In southern Burkina Faso, the size of cropland increased at an annualized rate higher than 1 per cent during 1986–2002 and believed to be driven by migrant population size and distribution (Ouedraogo, 2006a,b; Pare´ et al., 2008). Given the unquestionable contribution of increase population to environmental degradation in southern Burkina Faso, research that examines demographic drivers and particularly the impact of rural migration on land use change at spatial and temporal scales is of utmost importance to unravelling detail features of land use change. The main objective of the paper was to analyse to what extent land use patterns can be described by a rural–rural migration. To this end, a multi-scale, -spatial and -temporal analysis of land use patterns in Neboun village, including demographic and socio-economic activities was performed. The specific objectives of the study were to (i) estimate the trend in human population (both migrant and indigenous people) at different periods from 1976 to 2006, (ii) identify socio-economic activities, production tools, acreage and motives of migration and (iii) quantify land use change in time series as a result of migration. MATERIALS AND METHODS Study Area Description The study was carried out in the surroundings of Neboun village, located in Sissili Province (108570Nto118550N and À28480WtoÀ18240W), southern Burkina Faso (Figure 1). This study site was chosen for a variety of reasons. In particular, the site is flat, removing undesired topographic influences in the remotely sensed response and it is located in a junction of two main roads, thus providing better accessibility to migrant people. Improvement of road networks in a rural area amplifies rural migration and land use change (Verburg et al., 2004; Ningal et al., 2008). It covers about 95 km2 and is characterized by a low relief with an average altitude of 300 m a.s.l. The unimodal rainy season lasts for about 6 months, from May to October. Based on data collected from the in situ mini-weather station at the province city (Leo) located at 30 km from the study site, the mean annual rainfall during the study period (1975–2007) was 883 Æ 147 mm. Mean daily minimum and maximum temperatures ranged from 16 to 328Cin January (the coldest month) and from 26 to 408C in April (the hottest month). According to the FAO soil classification system (Driessen et al., 2001), most frequently encountered soil type is Lixisol (tropical ferruginous soils), which is poorly to fully leached, overlying sandy, clayey-sandy and sandy-clayey material. Phyto-geographically, the area belongs to the south-Sudanian zone (Fontes and Guinko, 1995). The natural vegetation comprises of a cluster of mostly dry forest and tree savannas. The flora is dominated by perennial grass species such as Andropogon gayanus Kunth, A. ascinodis C. B. Clarke and Schizachiryum sanguineum (Retz.) Alston (Fontes and Guinko, 1995). The ligneous species are represented mostly by Afzelia africana Sm., Khaya Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT, (2009) DOI: 10.1002/ldr ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY IN SOUTHERN BURKINA FASO Figure 1. Location of the study area. Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT, (2009) DOI: 10.1002/ldr I. OUEDRAOGO ET AL. senegalensis A. Juss. and Pterocarpus erinaceus Lam. The occurrence of scattered