Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 127 (2008) 277285

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Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment

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Land use analysis from spatial and eld data capture in southern Burkina Faso, West Africa
Souleymane Pare a,*, Ulf Soderberg b, Mats Sandewall b, Jean Marie Ouadba c
, Tropical Silviculture and Seed Laboratory, Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE-901 83 Umea Sweden , Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE-901 83 Umea Sweden c Institut de lEnvironnement et de la Recherches Agricoles, Centre National de la Recherche Scientique et Technologique, partements Productions Forestie `res, 03 BP 7047, Ouagadougou 03, Burkina Faso De
b a

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 2 April 2007 Received in revised form 5 April 2008 Accepted 11 April 2008 Available online 3 June 2008 Keywords: Change detection Land use dynamics Migration Spatial approach

Informed decision on the management of natural resources requires an understanding of the complex dynamics of socio-economic and biophysical factors. This study aimed at exploring the land use change in southern Burkina Faso at regional and local levels and the underlying causes of change. The local level study was conducted in two villages, Boala and Yale, in Sissili Province. Aerial photos from 1984 and 1997 and satellite images from 1986 and 2002 were employed to describe the land use dynamics. The spatial approach was combined with eld data collected in 2003 and 2005 for ground-truth checking and gathering other relevant data. Semi-structured questionnaire was used for gathering data on socioeconomic factors driving land use changes at local level. At regional scale, the annual rate of change in forest land, grazing land, gallery forest and cropland was 0.4, 0.9, 1.6 and 3.8%, respectively. The size of croplands increased by 14% in some districts with an equivalent annual rate of conversion to cropland estimated at 0.6% during 19862002. At the local level, the size of croplands increased from 7 to 14% in Boala and from 21 to 30% in Yale at the expense of shrinking of forest cover from 78 to 40% in the former and from 41 to 18% in the latter village. Rural migration (3.3% at regional level, and as high as 97% in Yale and 9% in Boala) coupled with extensive subsistence farming, large-scale commercial farming, intensive fuelwood extraction and other disturbances were the main factors driving land use change. In conclusion, the results show that in a decade and half the southern region of Burkina Faso has moved from a sparsely populated area with subsistence farming to a more complex zone of production characterized by high competition between different land use types. Integrated management of the natural resources in the region should, therefore, be given more attention. 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, many studies have concentrated on environmental issues in the tropics, which have positively inuenced national environmental policies (Glicken, 2000; Benjaminsen, 2001). However, environmental degradation continues to be a major ecological concern in tropical countries, where population growth and food production exert increased pressure on the ecological system (Nagendra et al., 2004; Wright, 2005; Etter et al., 2006; Pacheco, 2006). Thus, monitoring land use dynamics is essential to tune management strategies that enable a balance between production and conservation. For the assessment of the land use/cover changes, remote sensing data play a major

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 90 786 83 25; fax: +46 90 786 83 14. E-mail address: Souleymane.Pare@genfys.slu.se (S. Pare). 0167-8809/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.agee.2008.04.009

role with their ability to provide quantitative information on the spatial dynamics of land cover from different time periods (Tekle and Hedlund, 2000; Tottrup and Rasmussen, 2004; Deng et al., 2006; Mottet et al., 2006). This technique contributes greatly to a global understanding of environmental processes, but analysis at the local scale is more complicated. Finer scale studies in the Sudano-Sahelian zone reveal the complexity of land use situations, which are difcult to predict (Warren, 2002; Wardell et al., 2003; Burgos and Maass, 2004). Since the 1970s, recurrent drought in Burkina Faso has intensied the internal mobility of people towards the southern and western parts, which have favorable environmental conditions (Boutillier et al., 1985; Henry et al., 2003; Ouedraogo, 2003; Henry et al., 2004). Based on satellite images from 1955, 1983 and 1993, Howorth and OKeefe (1999) concluded that the population increase due to immigration has not led to environmental degradation in the southern region of Burkina Faso. However,

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Wardell et al. (2003) found that signicant deforestation had in fact occurred during the period 19862001 in western and southern regions along the Volta River basins. Recently, Braimoh (2006) obtained a deforestation rate of 11% in the grassland areas and a degradation of 17% in the woodlands of the northern region of Ghana for the period 19841999, which has a similar ecological zone as the southern Burkina Faso. Based on analysis of satellite images from 1986 to 2002, Ouedraogo (2006) found an annual deforestation rate of 1% in the Bieha district in Sissili Province of southern Burkina Faso. These ndings led to the formulation of key questions which guided this study: (a) what is the current trend in land use in the study area? (b) How can the situation observed at the local scale improve understanding of observations at the regional (or sub national) scale? (c) What are the drivers of land use change? To answer these questions, changes in land use were quantied based on multi-temporal spatial data at different scales over a 16-year period combined with eld-based observation and information gathered from farmers. We presented several maps that depict the current change in land use, analyzed the impact of the change in farming systems on the condition of the forest ecosystem and recommended strategies for natural resource management.

2. Materials and methods 2.1. Study area The study was carried out in Sissili and Ziro Provinces, which are located ca. 160 km from the capital (Ouagadougou) in southern Burkina Faso (1l8020 128000 N and 018300 28800 W), West Africa (Fig. 1). The study area is characterized by low relief with an average altitude of 300 m a.s.l. and consists primarily of settlements, cultivated lands, open savanna woodlands, and small areas of deciduous forests. The forest vegetation includes community (To and Boura) and State protected forests (Sissili classied forest, Kabore Tambi national park, Cassou forest exploitation zone). According to Fontes and Guinko (1995), the ora of the region is dominated by perennial grass species such as Andropogon ascinodis C.B.C.I, A. gayanus Kunth, and Schizachyrium sanguineum (Retz.) Alston, which constitute the open savanna. The ligneous species such as Afzelia africana Smith ex Pers., Khaya senegalensis (Desr.) A. Juss. and Pterocarpus erinaceus Poir. are also important fodder species. The occurrence of scattered tree species, such as Vitellaria paradoxa Gaertn. f., Parkia biglobosa (Jacq.) R. Br. ex G. Don. and Tamarindus indica L., on croplands is also a common feature in the

Fig. 1. Location of the study area.

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study area. This area belongs to the Sudanian or south-Sudanian zone according to the phyto-geographical zoning established by White (1986) and Guinko (1984), respectively. The mean (S.E.) annual rainfall for the years 19952000 was 859.20 31.98 mm and the number of rainy days per annum was 53.40 2.54. The average annual temperature is 27.1 8C, with a maximum average monthly temperature of 31.7 8C in April and a minimum average monthly temperature of 25.3 8C in August. The population is constituted of a native ethnic group, Nouni, and migrant group mainly Mossi (originating from the centre and northwest of Burkina Faso) and Fulani (originating from northern Burkina Faso). The average population density is 28 inhabitants/km2 in both Sissili and Ziro Provinces. The farming system is characterized by traditional subsistence farming and cultivation of cash crops (cotton, cashew tree) as well as intensive fuelwood extractions and ranching. 2.2. Land use mapping The assessment of changes in the land use was made at regional and local scales. For regional scale study, two satellite images from 1986 and 2002 were visually interpreted and processed to map land cover changes. The basic data source was Landsat satellite images (TM and ETM+): Path195 and Row 52 from November 1986 and October 2002, with 30 m spatial resolution. Administrative, topographic and forest maps obtained from the Institute of Geography and other sources (Kargougou, 2001; Ouedraogo, 2002; Yameogo and Ramde, 2004) were also used during land use cover change analysis. The spatial data were further checked for groundtruth on 58 plots located by a GPS. Canopy cover and canopy height were used as criteria to dene the woody vegetation units as follows: A forest as woody vegetation with canopy cover >40% and canopy height >5 m A woodland as vegetation with canopy cover between 15 and 40%; canopy height >5 m A gallery forest as a stripe of woody vegetation occurring along the main riverbank. To assess the land use dynamics at a local scale, two villages, Boala and Yale, from Sissili Province were selected. The two villages differ in the level of farming and in the proportion of migrant population. To analyze the land use dynamics, aerial photographs from 1984 and 1997 and a satellite image from 2002 were visually interpreted. The photographs were provided by the Institute of Geography in Burkina Faso (viz. Mission 84067B Po 1984, scale 1:50,000; Mission 97158B, Sissili 1997, scale 1:20,000). A eld survey was conducted in 2004 to collect ground-truth information based on 91 plots in Yale and 66 plots in Boala. The land use descriptions were based on the nomenclature from the Land cover map of Africa (Mayaux et al., 2004). Four land use classes were identied for visual interpretation: forest land (a mosaic of woody vegetation), cropland (land currently under cultivation and fallows), grazing land (tree and/or shrub savanna), and gallery forest (a stripe of woody vegetation along the main riverbank). The mapping was done using GIS tools in Arcview 3.3. 2.3. Drivers of land use change To further understand the land use dynamics, we gathered data on factors that could be the underlying causes of land use change, such as human population, farming system, disturbances to the different land use types and infrastructure development. At regional level, data on the population density were drawn from the national census reports (INSD, 1989, 1998; MATD, 2005) while

local census was conducted in the two villages in October 2002 to obtain demographic information for the purpose of this study. To characterize the farming system, farmers were interviewed about their farm conditions such the length of cultivation time, the type of crop cultivated, farming techniques, as well as the land tenure issues and ownership. To assess disturbances in the forests, a systematic stratied sampling design was applied where the protected and non-protected forests within a village were demarcated rst, and then systematically sampled by laying circular plots (55 m radius) on grids. Due to a late acquisition of the satellite image from 2002, the sample plots were delineated based on a map drawn from the 1997 aerial photograph. In Yale, the plots (91) covered 0.9% of the protected area of the village, and the same in the remaining non-protected area. In Boala, the plots (66) represented 1% of the total area of the village. The assessment included number of stumps of trees cut for fuelwood and local construction, number of trees pruned for animal feed, number of trees uprooted by elephants and the percentage of the plot with indicators of grazing (animal trails, hoof print and herbage removal). With regard to infrastructure development, we calculated the road networks at regional and local scales directly from the maps. 2.4. Data analyses After each land use type was delineated, its area and proportion of each land use cover to the total area was computed. The change in each land use type during the study period was calculated as the ratio of the difference in area between years to that of the initial year. This change was further divided by the time interval to get the annual rate of change. The annual rate of conversion to cropland was calculated as the difference in proportion of croplands between years divided by the time interval. Data on farm attributes were analyzed using descriptive statistics while information from interviews and eld assessment was summarized and presented. 3. Results 3.1. Land use dynamics at a local scale The trend of land use change was similar between the villages, although the magnitude of land use change differed. In Boala, the proportion of cropland doubled while the grazing land tripled during the 16-year period (Table 1A and Fig. 2). Forest land was decreased nearly by half in 2002 compared to its coverage in 1984, while the size of the gallery forest did not change much. In Yale, the size of crop and grazing lands increased by 9 and 18% in 2002
Table 1 Land use change at a local level for the period 19842002 Land use type 1984 Total (ha) (A) Boala Croplands Grazing lands Forest lands Gallery forests Total (B) Yale Croplands Grazing lands Forest lands Gallery forests Total % 1997 Total (ha) % 2002 Total (ha) %

586 1,038 6,434 191 8,249

7 13 78 2 100

957 3,616 3,614 62 8,249

12 44 44 1 100

1,145 3,719 3,323 62 8,249

14 45 40 1 100

2,184 3,169 4,411 877 10,641

21 30 41 8 100

2,735 5,006 2,282 618 10,641

26 47 21 6 100

3,205 5,112 1,879 445 10,641

30 48 18 4 100

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Fig. 2. Land use change in Boala village during 19842002.

compared to the sizes in 1984, while the forest land and the gallery forests declined by nearly 50% (Table 1B and Fig. 3). At a local scale, the annual rate of conversion to cropland was estimated as 0.4% for Boala and 0.5% in Yale. 3.2. Land use dynamics at the regional scale At the regional level, the various land use types included extensive grazing areas, pastoral management unit, subsistence and commercial agriculture, conservation forest, and production forest mainly for fuelwood extraction (Fig. 4). The actual size and

proportion of the different land use types changed during the study period. In 1986, the grazing land had much higher proportion of the total regional area than other land use types while the size of croplands was substantially high after 16 years (Table 2). The size of other land use types decreased during the study period; particularly the decrease was more notable in the gallery forest and grazing land. Interestingly, the annual conversion rate to croplands varied among districts within provinces. In Ziro Province, the lowest conversion rate was observed in Cassou and the highest in Bougnounou (Table 3). In Sissili Province, the lowest and highest conversion rates were observed in Silly and

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Fig. 3. Land use change in Yale village during 19842002.

Niabouri districts, respectively, while no conversion was noted in Nabielianayou.

Table 2 Regional land use dynamic in the southern area of Sissili and Ziro Provinces during 19862002 Land use type Forest lands Grazing lands Gallery forests Croplands Total area 1986 ha 209,561 738,176 75,949 213,414 1,237,100 % 17 60 6 17 100 2002 ha 197,747 632,828 55,919 340,606 1,237,100 % 16 51 4 28 100 Total change ha 11,814 105,348 20,035 127,192 1,237,100 % 6 14 26 +60 0 Annual change (%) 0.38 0.88 1.63 +3.75 0

3.3. Drivers of land use change There was an increase in population at both regional and local levels during the study period. At a regional scale, the annual rate of increase in population density was 3.3% with remarkable variation among districts within provinces (Table 3). The values ranged from 0.7% (Bougnounou) to 5% (Sapouy) in Ziro Province, and from 2.8% (To) to 9% (Niabouri) in Sissili Province. The annual change in population density showed some correspondence with the annual rate of conversion to croplands in most of the districts.

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Fig. 4. Regional land use pattern in the southern zone of Burkina Faso in 2002.

Table 3 Percentage of cropland to the total area of each district, annual changes in cropland cover, annual rate of conversion to cropland and population density (no./km2) at the regional scale Districts Cropland, 1986 (%) Cropland, 2002 (%) Annual change (%) Annual conversion rate (%) Population density, 1986 Population density, 2005 Annual change in population, 19852005 (%) 5.0 6.7 0.7 4.9 1.8 2.9 3.2 2.3 3.8 3.3 2.8 9.0 3.1 3.5 2.9 3.4 2.2 3.3 2.1

Sapouy Bakata Bougnounou Dalo Cassou Gao Ziro (Province) Nebiel Silly To Niabouri Boura Bieha Leo Sissili (Province) Total/region

16 25 22 30 18 20 19 27 22 26 10 13 4 17 16 17

22 40 44 37 19 30 28 27 27 40 34 34 14 26 27 28

2.6 3.6 6.0 1.5 0.4 3.5 2.7 0.1 1.5 3.3 14.3 9.8 14.4 3.0 4.7 3.7

0.4 0.9 1.3 0.5 0.1 0.7 0.5 0.4 0.0 0.3 0.9 1.5 1.3 0.6 0.5 0.7 0.4 0.6 0.4

9 17 34 16 21 19 17 11 17 24 12 14 9 27 16 17

19 39 38 32 29 31 28 19 29 38 34 23 15 43 28 28

At a local level, there was also a similar increase in population with distinct difference in population density between the villages, where it was lower in Boala than in Yale (Table 4). It was interesting to note the high inux of people into Yale compared to Boala, as shown by the high proportion of migrant population in the former village. The farming system was characterized by large-scale commercial farming and subsistence farming (mainly in the form of shifting cultivation). Large scale farming of commercial crops, such as cashew nuts, maize and beans, was found in seven districts within the region with varying land size (Table 5); the highest being in Cassou (1228 ha) and the lowest in Bakata (120 ha). Attributes of subsistence farms are presented in Table 6. They were generally small in size (46 ha/farmer), being put under

cultivation for longer period by migrant farmers who also put higher labor input than the natives while they both had similar off-farm activities and farming techniques. With regard to land tenure issue, 91% of the migrants got access to land through loan
Table 4 Changes in population at two villages during the period 19852002 Item Yale 1985 Total population (no.) Population density (no./km2) Natives proportion (%) Migrants proportion (%) 2400 23 3 97 1996 2670 25 5 95 2002 3190 30 6 94 Boala 1985 373 5 98 2 1996 456 6 95 5 2002 537 7 91 9

 S. Pare et al. / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 127 (2008) 277285 Table 5 Size of commercial farms possessed by agri-business actors and its proportion to the total cropland in each district in the southern region of Burkina Faso in 2002 Districts Bakata Sapouy Cassou Leo To Bieha Boura Total/region
a

283

Area (ha)a 120 948 1228 667 105 200 200 3468

Area in % 3 27 35 19 3 6 6 100

Proportion of croplands 0.5 2.1 5.4 2.7 0.2 0.8 0.5 1.0

road connecting Burkina Faso with Ghana, while Boala is almost isolated and the only road to access Boala is the 34 km secondary road and then the 9 km of path unusable during the rainy season (i.e., JuneSeptember). 4. Discussion The results from the present study revealed that there was a rapid land use change both at local and regional scales. At the local scale, the size of crop and grazing lands increased at the expense of shrinking of forest cover with distinct variation in magnitude of change between villages. This land use dynamics could be driven by the associated increase in population due to migration particularly in Yale village, where local migration is dated backed to the 1975 (personal communication with villagers). Apparently, the proximity of Yale to the road made inux of people higher than Boala, which is in line with the important synergetic causeeffect relation between population-infrastructure and agricultural expansion on tropical deforestation (Geist and Lambin, 2002). The increased inux of people to the village is accounted for increased in cropland, as migrants are involved not only in subsistence farming but also in cultivation of commercial crops such as cotton, cashew and beans. Consequently, Yale is now experiencing land shortage and most newcomers have to share land with established immigrants due to the fact that the protected forest reserve covers 50% of the village land coupled with the increasing population. The fact that the migrants have user rights to the land they obtained by loan illustrates the receptivity by the native population (Nuni) and exibility of the land tenure, which has played an important role in the integration of the migrants (mainly Mossi and Fulani) in the region, as mentioned by Howorth (1999). However, this local land tenure is characterized by some restrictions such as precluding tree planting by migrants, which is considered as a mark of land appropriation like in many rural areas of Burkina Faso. These restrictions are being contested by many established immigrants in Yale, who suggest that having lived there for over three decades they should have certain privileges as long as there is no claim on land or a clear intention of appropriation. They also suggest that the development of tree crops contribute to the improvement of production systems, which can be protable for the village as a whole. This restriction on tree planting could have a negative impact on the land use, particularly on the diversity of on farm trees. Although the land use right is

Data readapted by authors after Ouedraogo (2002).

Table 6 Farm characteristics (mean S.D.), farming techniques and access to land by native and migrant populations in Bola and Yale villages Items Farm characteristics Crops area per farmer (ha) Farming duration (year) Labor average size per farmer Farming techniques (%) Manual techniques user Oxen plough users Small ruminant rearing Off-farm activities Form of access to land (%) Access to land by gift Access to land by loan Native farmers Migrant farmers

3.8 1.9 12 10 42 9 21 13 17

4.8 3.3 16 8 74 9 25 19 17

86 14

9 91

while 86% of the natives received land as a gift from parents and relatives. The extent of disturbance on the different land use types differed between villages (Fig. 5). Cutting for fuelwood and local construction was common on croplands in Boala while it was common on grazing lands in Yale. Pruning of branches and grazing inuence were largely observed on grazing lands in both villages while elephant damage was disproportionately higher on forest lands in Boala than Yale. Concerning road networks, we found 317 km of main and secondary roads, which can be used in all seasons in the region, and 45% of the villages lying within 5 km radius from the roads. We also found that Yale is situated at a main

Fig. 5. Disturbance on different land use types in Boala and Yale villages: (A) cutting for fuelwood and local construction, (B) pruning for animal feed, (C) damage incurred by elephants, and (D) grazing impact.

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somehow exible for migrant population, there is a prohibition on a woman to own farm land by the traditional land rights. The increase in grazing lands in both villages pertains mainly to the installation of cattle herders on the protected area of Yale in 1997 (the Fulani ethnic group). In practice the installation was extended to all open access areas of the region. In recent years the high density of the cattle herds and uncontrolled grazing practices have increased crop insecurity, and the episodic conicts between herders and farmers have become more frequent (Ouedraogo, 2003). Most of the land use dynamics issues observed at a local scale is also reected at the regional scale. First, there was an increase in the size of cropland and population density as well as a change in farming system, mainly geared towards cash crop production. This increase in population density is associated with a continuous ux of immigrants, which in turn alters the traditional agriculture production systems (McMillan et al., 1992; Drabo et al., 2003; Henry et al., 2003). The important consequence of the population increase from inux of people was the high rate of conversion to croplands observed in several districts. The regional rate of conversion to croplands (0.6%) is twice higher than the national rate (0.3%) for the period 19902005 (FAO, 2006). Similarly, the annual rate of change in cropland (3.7%) was higher than the national rate of 1.4% from 1984 to 1997 as reported by Stephenne and Lambin (2001). This trend in conversion to croplands was conrmed by Ouedraogo (2006) who found a rate of 1% for the same period 19862002 in Bieha district of the studied region. One important consequence of this conversion is the degradation of Sissili protected forest in addition to the increasing illegal activities such as charcoal production, hunting, and bush re occurring each year. The second important factor is the increasing pressure from grazing. A pastoral zone was established in 1998 within the protected area to prevent overgrazing problems but the project was not successful (Kamuanga et al., 2001). Instead, the high density of cattle led to excessive pruning of fodder trees and increasing threats to crops due to grazing, thus resulting in deterioration of social relations between herders and farmers. The third aspect is the land tenure, which is the same for the region in the sense that all the rural lands of the region are under the hands of the native ethnic group (Nuni). However, recent studies have shown that there is an emerging issue of access to forest resources by migrants in the region, particularly in Bougnounou district (Zougouri, 2006). At regional scale too, tree planting by migrants is not allowed and women has no right to own a land. As in the case of most areas in Burkina Faso, our study site (the southern region) experiences land tenure insecurity, particularly due to increasing land transactions for expansion of agri-business (Mathieu, 2001; Bologo, 2004). In general, land tenure issue in the country is still a subject of contention, as the Land Reform Act of 1984, revised in 1991 and 1996 (Ouedraogo, 2002) seems not to be fully applied. Several factors contribute to a more complex land use dynamics pattern when studied at a regional scale. One is the various types of resource management systems, which includes traditional subsistence farming of cereal, intensive farming of cash crops and local market crops and new systems of fuelwood extraction, ranching, agri-business tree planting, protected forest reserve for fauna conservation and pastoral management. Another factor is a weak dialogue and/or consensus between the multitude of actors (i.e., native subsistence farmers, migrant farmers, migrant cattle breeders, private actors) on the access to land and/or its occupation (personal communication with local stakeholders). Sometimes, different types of activities overlap such as the pastoral management of grazing activities located in the Sissili protected forest and the extensive area of fuelwood extraction. The subsistence

croplands are expanding annually and the agri-business occupations are gradually increasing into the grazing lands. But at the same time, the density of cattle is increasing in the region, partially due to increasing of local herding and mainly due to the transhumance of immigrant herders. In this area, there is also an increasing interest in community forest management by the local populations (e.g., Boura, To, Bori-Nebou and Cassou exploitations zones), but Ouedraogo (2001) stressed that the reliability of the fuelwood extraction activities in Burkina Faso is questionable. In general, the allocation of areas to the different activities is not always based on a consensus between the different stakeholders (Ouedraogo, 2002; Stakeholders communication in 2003). This factor is increasing the competition among different land use types in the region. The complexity of the current land use dynamic suggests a need for integrated management in the region. Successful cases of local initiatives in other areas of Burkina Faso exist from which we could learn (Hansen and Reenberg, 1998; Reenberg and Lund, 1998; Brasselle et al., 2002). Insecurity to access and use of land is often caused by exogenous factors that are not adapted to the local conditions (Ouedraogo et al., 1996; Reenberg et al., 1998), but on the other hand the adaptation of traditional land tenure rights to the socio-economic context of land use change is important for the improvement of the natural resource management systems (Ouedraogo et al., 1996; Reenberg and Lund, 1998; Drabo et al., 2003; Mwangi and Dohrn, 2007). To this end some important conditions are needed, which include local rights recognition, equity in benets for actors, and consensus on collective choices (Hermosilla, 2000; Sulser et al., 2000; Ribot, 2001). Resources management strategies should be built from experience and lessons, and also need to be based on factual land use (Castro and Nielsen, 2001; Sandewall et al., 2001) where understanding of the various local situations is valuable (Reenberg, 2001). 5. Conclusions This study on land use dynamics in southern part of Burkina Faso shows that in a decade and half the southern region has moved from a sparsely populated area with subsistence farming to a more complex zone of production characterized by high competition between different land use types. The land use change, both at local and regional levels, is moving toward increased cropland at the expense of destructing the forest vegetation, mainly due to population increase from immigration, the dominance of extensive farming systems, and emergence of commercial large scale farming. The increasing pressure on forests from uncontrolled grazing, bush res, high conversion to croplands as well as fuelwood extraction are all contributing factors to the decline in forest cover. Integrated management of the natural resources in the region should, therefore, be given more attention. To this end, the following recommendations are forwarded: (a) facilitate local dialogue among the various stakeholders to reach a consensus on land use; (b) regulate the inux of people to the region, grazing intensity to reduce the increasing pressure on the forest resources; (c) empowering local communities in management and conservation of forest resources; (d) follow-up of the land use changes in the region, and the methods used in this study can be seen as a potential tool for such monitoring. Acknowledgments This study was funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). We are grateful to Dr. Mulualem Tigabu, Dr. Patrice Savadogo, Hans Sjogren and Heather Reese for reviewing the draft manuscript and their valuable comments.

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Thanks are due to Pascaline Lingani, Issa Nebie for their support in the eld work. resource persons at the Sissili Province of kind cooperation during the meetings and References

Ouedraogo, and Siaka We also thank all the Burkina Faso for their the eldwork.

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