Deforestation processes in the livestock territory of La Vía Láctea, Matagalpa, Nicaragua

ABSTRACT

Land-use change is considered one of the main causes of environmental degradation. Thus, its analysis will allow stakeholders to make reasonable decisions for land management. The objective of the present study was to understand the patterns of land-use/land-cover change and deforestation in a territory of importance for livestock development in Nicaragua: La Vía Láctea. The methodology was based on the digital processing of satellite images using the geographic information system that allowed the generation of the thematic cartography of land-use/land-cover for 1978, 1986, 1998, and 2011. Between 1978 and 2011, a total of 93% of the forest cover was converted to pasture for livestock development; this change has been influenced by socio-economic and political factors. This study, moreover, reinforces the idea that livestock is the main driver of deforestation. Landscape restoration requires increasing tree cover by adopting silvopastoral systems that improve biodiversity conservation and the provision of ecosystem services.

KEYWORDS:

• Deforestation
• land use/land cover
• livestock
• remote sensing
• Nicaragua

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank INTA-Nicaragua for its help in the field phase ‒especially Luis Urbina and Michael Vilches‒, Irene Curtolo Kühne for her help in editing this document, Larry Niño for her support in GIS, Gusnara Bustos for her comments and useful suggestions to improve the manuscript, and the anonymous proofreaders who helped us enrich the final work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was carried out under the framework of the project ‘Development of competitive livestock production systems with low greenhouse gas emissions in Central America’ (FTG/RF-14652-RG), sponsored by FONTAGRO (2015–2017).