Intertwining people and forest in the Lower River Region (LRR) of the Gambia

Abstract

Biocultural diversity is fundamental in understanding the interactive pathways between people and the forest. The foundation for these various pathways is forest functions and values such as productive, cultural, social, and supportive that makes this relation possible indicating the importance of forest in the lives of people. The aim of this research is to examine the interrelationships between the people and forest in the Lower River Region of the Gambia by documenting individuals’ life experiences and perceptions about various forest ecosystem services. To access these relationships, the study uses both qualitative approaches by interviewing community members and quantitative approaches using geographic information systems (GIS software) and remote sensing satellite imagery to establish facts about these complex connections. The findings reveal that people’s perception about the forest is linked to their well-being and life experience that attributes to their activities of being-in the forest. Those activities contribute to forest development and maintenance through integrated management systems, involving both state and communities in managing what belongs to them. However, from the results, the relationship indicates that humans are the main drivers to deforestation of their community forest. Through their socio-economic and cultural activities like land use change for agriculture, commercial timber production, illegal timber logging, domestic firewood collection and charcoal production, bush fire, human settlement and development. The analysis of land use and land cover map indicates that from 1979 to 2021, there was a net decline of 17% of forest cover in the lower river region of the Gambia. Dense forest completely changes to mix forest and grassland. Consequences of human activities to forest in the region lead to extinction of traditional knowledge about the forest and people's disconnection from the forest because the physical appearance of forest is essential in keeping human-forest relationship.