Analysis of Community Forestry Impact on the Forest Communities Based Management Landscape Dynamics in Miombo Woodland Region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Twenty local communities had received in Upper-Katanga their accreditation granting them perpetual management of their forest concession according to the Decree-Law No 14/018 of August 2nd, 2014, concerning the allocation of Forest Communities Based Management (FCBM). The objective is to reduce poverty, improve community livelihoods and reduce forest degradation and deforestation. Thus, community forestry serves as a management tool to address the numerous pressures on the Katangian open forest (Miombo Woodland), including deforestation and land cover changes which alter the structure and dynamics of vegetation cover and increase climate change effects. It also encourages the local communities to restore and conserve their forest heritage sustainably through FCBM. Consequently, the establishment of FCBM leads to changes in the spatial configuration of the Miombo landscape. To evaluate the impact of community forestry on the dynamic landscape of FCBM, Landsat images were used with a combined approach which integrated NDVI into the coloured composition to increase class separability for the final classification. The interpretation of the landscape dynamics was determinate by spatial indices (area, perimeter and number of patches). The accuracy and Kappa index were greater than 90% on all classifications carried out by spectral correspondence of 2021 image, for six defined land cover classes. The analysis shows that NDVI inclusion in the colour composition increases the separability of forest classes following its degradation gradient. Furthermore, spatial indices show that community forestry has greatly influenced spatial configuration, from 2017 to 2019. The trend becomes downward between 2019 to 2021, thus demonstrating the impact of Covid-19 on the Miombo project results. This is visible through the number of patches, perimeter and area in each FCBM and in turn, its landscape dynamics before Covid-19 forest area increased by more than 80% in each FCBM but after COVID-19 it decreased. However, this dynamic remains proportional to temporal fluctuations as the trends before and after COVID-19 are disproportionate. The community forestry project implementation in the Miombo woodland has led to a transformation in the forest areas and affected their extent, number, and type. Therefore, reassessing the project’s broad strategies is essential to ensure the sustainability of its activities in these areas