African Rainforest

Except for the Congo Basin, the tropical rain forests of Africa have been largely depleted by commercial exploitation by logging and conversion for agriculture. In West Africa, nearly 90 percent of the original rainforest is gone and the remainder is heavily fragmented and in poor use. Especially problematic in Africa is desertification and conversion of rainforests to erodible agriculture and grazing lands.

Review Rainforest Information by Country:

Angola
Benin
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Central African Republic
Comoros
Congo
Congo(Zaire - Dem Republic)
Cote d'Ivoire(Ivory Coast)
Equatorial Guinea
Ethiopia
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Liberia
Madagascar
Malawi
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mozambique
Niger
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
Sao Tome and Principe
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Sudan
Tanzania
Togo
Uganda
Zambia
Zimbabwe

Most of the tropical rainforests of Africa exist in the Congo (Zaire) River Basin. Remnants also exist throughout Western Africa which is in a sorry state due to the plight of poverty which encourages subsistence agriculture and firewood harvesting. This realm is dry and seasonal when compared to the other realms. The outlying portions of this rainforest is steadily becoming desert.

By far, the largest number of countries with rainforests are located in one geographical section of the World - the Afrotropical region. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) indicates these 38 countries exist mainly in West and Central Africa. The countries, for the most part, are very poor and live at the subsistence level.

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