The main areas of forest in Africa (Map 1) are the moist equatorial forests of the Congo basin and coastal West Africa, the Miombo woodlands to the south of the Congo basin, the dry forest band stretching from southern Sudan to Guinea Bissau, the mountain formations of the Ethiopian Plateau and in Kenya, the thorn forests of Somalia and eastern Ethiopia, and the Mediterranean forests of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Most of the forest around the Mediterranean region is mixed needleleaf/broadleaf forest and sclerophyllous forest. The Sahara desert appears as a vast area devoid of trees from Mauritania and Western Sahara in the west to Egypt and northern Sudan in the east. Namibia and western South Africa largely show a lack of forest cover, but in South Africa some of this is due to insufficient data for the forests around the southern tip. Madagascar shows moist forest in a stretch along the eastern side, dry forests in the west.
Fourteen classes of forest were determined, including a disturbed forests category, which mainly came from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre TREES project data for the Congo basin. Most of the dry forest data for Africa came from the IGBP Global Land Cover project . Quite a significant proportion of the dry forests are very sparse (sparse trees and parkland). There are 13 different Ecological Zones in Africa (Map 2), and the drier forest types are distributed in the drier zones.
Zaire had by far the most forest of any country in Africa (Fig. 2, Table 1). Of the countries with forest, Eritrea had the least. Mauritania and Western Sahara had absolutely no forest cover (Map 1). The country with the second largest figure for forest cover, Angola, had just over a quarter of the amount of forest in Zaire. Of the 50 countries and territories included in the study for the region, 13 had more than 10% of their forests protected (Fig.2). However, the figure for the total area of forest protected for some of these was rather lower than other countries with more forest, e.g., Rwanda, which had the highest percentage forest protected (50%), had comparatively little forest (4,530km2); Angola had only 2.6% of its forests under protection, but this still totalled 9,772 km2.
Of the 14 different forest types in Africa only four were more than 10% protected: upper montane rain forest, deciduous/semi-deciduous broadleaf forest and both tropical and non-tropical sparse trees and parkland (Fig. 1). Non-tropical sclerophyllous dry forest, mainly in the Mediterranean (North African) countries, had the lowest percentage protection of any forest type. Only one forest type was confined to one country: the non-tropical sparse trees and parkland. This occurred in Algeria, and was over 80% protected (Fig.1, Table 2). The most abundant forest type was tropical deciduous/semi-deciduous broadleaf forest, which covered even more ground than the lowland evergreen rain forest (Fig. 1). Much of the former comprise the Miombo woodlands of south-central Africa. Three forest types only occurred in three countries, tropical lower montane forest, semi-evergreen moist broadleaf forest, and non-tropical mixed needleleaf/broadleaf forest, although the total and protected forest cover of each of these was much greater than that of non-tropical deciduous broadleaf forest, which was present in seven countries but in comparatively small amounts, and only protected in two of these (Table 2). The country with the highest cover of this type was Morocco, but it was not protected there. Thorn forest was present in very sizeable amounts in both Somalia and Ethiopia, and there were over 1000km2 protected in each of these countries.
Two other forest types which were shown to have low protection in Fig. 1 were mangrove and lower montane forest (both 1.4%). The former occurred in many countries, the latter only in three (Table 2). The lower montane forest in Mozambique had no protection. Both forest types occurred in six ecological zones (Table 3). The zone which contained most of the lower montane forest had none protected: these were mostly in Angola; the zone that had least of the mangrove had none protected. These latter were mainly all in Senegal, where they extended into zones lowland sub-dry and lowland moist with long dry season. These mangrove forests probably showed little variation from zone to zone (the marine connection would facilitate uniformity) so protection in any zone in Senegal would suffice, as long as it was efficient. Mangroves in Senegal are currently only 2.8% protected (from Table 2).
Freshwater swamp forest was only 2.4% protected (Fig. 1). It occurred in eight countries and was protected in four (Table 2). It had no protection in Cameroon, Congo, Gabon and Mozambique (Table 2). This forest type was spread over eight different ecological zones but protected only in three. A very small area in the lowland wet zone had no protection, and larger areas in the lowland moist with short dry season and lowland moist with long dry season were not protected. Cameroon supports the only forest of this type in the lowland wet region and therefore, unless it is found to be sufficiently similar to the forests in the other more widespread zones that protection in these latter would be sufficient, it is only Cameroon that can protect this forest variant. Because of the geographical separation of Mozambique from the Congo, Cameroon and Gabon, its swamp forests are probably different enough from those in the latter countries that protection in these latter would not cover the ecological variant of the forest type in Mozambique. Freshwater swamp forests in Cameroon, Congo and Gabon that are in the same ecological zones are probably sufficiently similar that adequate protection in one country would preserve the variant, although protection of a forest type by more than one state is always preferable.
The analysis of the forests by ecological zone shows that the greatest forest cover occurred in the lowland moist-short dry season zone, but they were only 3.9% protected and quite a sizeable proportion of them were disturbed (Table 3, Fig. 3). This zone supported a greater area of lowland evergreen broadleaf rain forest than any other, although the lowland very moist zone was a close second (Table 3). Five of the thirteen ecological zones had more than 10% of the forest protected. The alpine zone had the highest percentage of protected forest (70%, Fig. 3). This zone however had the least amount of forest of all the zones, the total being 10904 km2: the montane dry zone had a comparatively similar amount of forest at 12583km2 but had only just under 5% protected. There were seven different forest types in the alpine zone, including both tropical and non-tropical forests (Table 3), and all were protected to a certain degree except the non-tropical sclerophyllous forests. None of this forest type was protected in the montane dry zone either. The forests of this type may not differ significantly between these two zones as the zones are beside each other in the locations where these forests occur. Protection in the montane dry zone where the forests are more abundant would probably therefore contribute significantly to the presence of the species in these ecosystems.
In an attempt to impartially indicate natural, undisturbed forest variants which may be under the most immediate threat of destruction, a list was drawn up that pinpointed those under 100 km2 in extent with none protected. These are variants of relatively limited extent and which do not even have any legal protection; possibly much less actual protection. Some of these forest variants may indeed be truly rare and unprotected types, others are clearly fragments of forest at the end of their ranges, as for example certain types of dry forest should not normally occur in moist ecological zones, or vice versa. An in-depth analysis of these forest variants is outside the scope of this study. There were 9 of the 98 variants in Africa that met these criteria, and these are listed below (T=tropical forest type, N=non-tropical forest type):
Table 4 shows that the moist zones generally support a higher percentage of forest. The zone with the highest percent forest cover in Africa was lowland very moist, although much of these were disturbed (Table 3, Table 4). The alpine zone contained the highest percentage of protected forest (20%, Table 4). Although Table 3 shows that there were some protected forests in the lowland arid/desertic, montane dry and mediteranean zones, these were less than 0.5% of the area of the zone (zero in Table 4 has been rounded up).
Return to previous page.