Comparing protected area data of CIV
Cecile Renier
02/09/2021
Protected Areas data sources
We have four different data sources showing various boundaries and categories of protected areas. The question is: which one is correct?
Data sources :
WDPA (World Database of Protected Areas): all categories (parcs, reserves, forêts classées): downloaded on the wdpa website in August 2021. This map identifies more areas as protected compared to BNETD (below). Most protected areas do not have a reported IUCN category - cf. map and table below.
SST (Surveillance Spatiale des Terres): downloaded on the Geoportail in August 2021. Includes Forêts classées only (I could not find a shp for parcs & reserves on this website). It does not match the boundaries of the WDPA protected areas.
BNETD (Bureau national d’études techniques et de développement): sent by Nitidae in August 2021, but we don’t have the date of creation of this layer. All categories are gathered in two shapefiles, one with forêts classées and one with Parcs & Réserves. Variations can be observed, with areas indicated as protected in WDPA shp that are not present in BNETD. As compared to SST, some areas are indicated as forêts classées by SST and not by BNETD and vice-versa.
OIPR (Office Ivoirien des Parcs et Réserves): sent by EFI in August 2021. It is supposed to be the latest version of national parks and reserves boundaries. EFI did not have the shp for forêts classées, only a pdf map from MINEF (Ministère des Eaux et Forêts), cf. below.
MINEF-ICF Map of Forêts classées 2019
Comparing maps
Protected areas categories
WDPA - IUCN categories :
##
## Ia II IV
## 3 9 3BNETD:
##
## Forêt classée Parc Animalier
## 222 1
## Parc National Réserve Botanique
## 8 1
## Réserve de Faune Réserve de Faune et de Flore
## 1 1
## Réserve Naturelle
## 2OIPR:
##
## Parc National Reserve integrale Reserve naturelle
## 9 1 7Number of forêts classées
WDPA:
## [1] 228SST:
## [1] 210BNETD:
## [1] 222Conclusion from the comparison of the maps
For Parcs and reserves: We can assume that OIPR - office in charge of Protected areas and Reserves in CIV - has the most up to date map. The shapefile we have has the same boundaries and categories as the image from their website below (WDPA has similar results).
16 Parcs (green) and Réserves (orange), image from the OIPR website
For Forêts Classées: From visual comparison, the SST map of forêts classées is the same as the MINEF pdf. However, the pdf is dated 2019 and does not include the latest change - i.e. does not yet list Mabi-yaya as a Reserve - Decret October 2019 - but the OIPR data does. WDPA does not have Mabi-Yaya as a reserve, it seems to be the map differing the most from the MINEF pdf map. BNETD is in between, having Mabi-Yaya as a Reserve but other Forêts classées are mapped in BNETD map and not in the MINEF pdf.
With the creation of the Mabi-Yaya reserve, the previous Mabi and Yaya Forêts classées did not completely disappeared but have been reshaped - Decret October 2019 on the new boundaries of the Mabi and Yaya Forêts classées. It seems that the BNETD map includes these new boundaries for those two Forêts classées, but we don’t know their category.
Conclusion: we decide to work with the merger of forêts classées from the SST layer, and parcs and reserves from the OIPR layer to get a single file with all protected areas in CIV. For Mabi and Yaya Forêts classées : we remove them from SST (old boundaries) and replace them with the new versions from the BNETD map.
Confirmation should be asked to officials in CIV, specially to confirm if SST forêts classées layer is better than BNETD.
FROM EFI: Forêts classées de catégorie 3 are now considered as “agroforests” where it is allowed to grow cocoa in agroforestry. (to check: The management of those agroforests is handed over to private companies (one per forest)). EFI suggested to remove the forêts classées de catégorie 3 from our analysis. We create another file without this category of ForêtS classées below.
WITHOUT FORETS CLASSEES OF CATEGORY 3 (AGROFORESTS)