Assessing Land Cover Change and Forest Sustainability in a World Heritage Context: Evidence from the Okapi Wildlife Reserve

Forest loss and degradation in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve (OWR), a UNESCO World Heritage site, have accelerated since 2013, with disturbances primarily concentrated along its boundaries and National Road No. 4, while also affecting core protected areas. This study, using Landsat satellite data from 2000 to 2023 and the Continuous Change Detection and Classification (CCDC) algorithm, reveals increasing landscape fragmentation and varied conservation pressures across management zones, as measured by the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15.1.1 indicator. The findings highlight the potential of Earth observation techniques for monitoring endangered World Heritage sites in conflict-affected regions with limited field data.

Fan, J., Li, L., Sun, J., Yang, J., Tu, R., Fu, X., Luo, Z., & Karimian, H. (2026). Assessing Land Cover Change and Forest Sustainability in a World Heritage Context: Evidence from the Okapi Wildlife Reserve. Land, 15(9), 1635. https://doi.org/10.3390/land15091635