USING RGB COLOR LIGHTS TO DETERMINE THE EFFECTS OF HUMAN PRESSURE ON BIG SCALE AFRICAN NATIONAL PARKS

Abstract

One of the reasons for humans not being actively involved in protecting natural landscapes from the wave of pressures to which they are exposed is the ground-based image that sends to people a wrong illusion that nature is very large and unlimited, with inexhaustible resources. This study focused on National Parks (NPs), considered as one of the last refuges of wildlife on earth, yet overlooked by various Land Use & Land Cover (LULC) assessments. The study uses Landsat images and mapping approach to capture the most significant LULC changes that happened between 1985 and 2015 on five Big Scale African NP (BSANP), quantify their spatial extent and identify their level of human intrusion. The results show that NPs in desert regions, Banc d’Arguin NP and Namib Naukluft NP recorded a slight change in LULC. An increase of 18 and 8.3% in burned areas were, respectively, recorded in Manovo-Gounda-Saint Floris NP and Southern NP. The annual growth of 0.76% in green LULC for Random NP is a sign that there is still some hope for conservation in Africa. Our results show that Africa’s PAs are severely affected by human activities and that it is high time to come to their rescue before it’s too late. Tracking the fluctuations in LULC due to human intrusion into NPs is a reliable strategy to ensure their sustainable conservation.