Abstract
Environmental change in the West African Sahel, including land cover change, has been a prominent issue in sustainability and development debates and research for the last half century. This paper provides a reminder that historical changes in the use of land resources are embedded in a complex web of driving forces, which it is crucial to keep in mind in order to appreciate the role of different factors of change.
The article seeks to identify the wide range of influential events that have modified land use decisions in Burkina Faso and Niger for the period from before Independence (1960) until the present day. The material originates from a thorough consultation of local literature as well as from national expert knowledge. A ‘timeline heuristic’ provides an overview of the co-evolution of major issues characterizing the ‘demographic and socioeconomic setting’, the ‘political and institutional setting’ and the ‘biophysical setting’, which enable and constrain changes in the use of land. When possible, the impact of changes is specified in detail in terms of land use patterns, food security, environment, agricultural practices or pastoral practices.
An overview matrix indicates how environmental and land use related processes in the Sahel are embedded in many constantly changing influential conditions. On this background, the article cautions against translating insights gained from past experience into generic traits of human-environment dynamics, which can be immediately used to predict plausible directions of future changes in pressures on land and the environment.

Key words: Sahel, Sustainability research, institutions, policies