Work

Woodland resources and management in southern Africa

Year: 2018

Type: article

Abstract: A teristic presence of grasses in the understorey (Putz & Redford, 2010; Ratnam et al., 2011; Oliveras & Malhi, 2016).Tropical woodlands are dominated by C4 grasses.The C4 photosynthetic pathway makes them tolerant to higher temperatures and drought but less tolerant to shade compared to C3 grasses (Ratnam et al., 2011; Oliveras & Malhi, 2016).We will use the term "woodland" in this article to follow regional convention and to highlight that tropical rainforests and Afromontane forests are not discussed here.For information on the dense mountain, coastal and mist forests of South Africa, we refer to Introduc onSouthern Africa has about 190 million ha of forests with an average of 32% forest cover.Forest types range from tropical moist and rainforest in the north to subtropical dry and humid forest, as well as mountain forest, in the south (Fig. 1).Most vegetation classifi ed by FAO as tropical forest is commonly named "woodland" in the region, for example Miombo or Mopane woodland (Timberlake & Chidumayo, 2011;Chirwa et al., 2014).Woodlands diff er from forests because of their more open canopy cover and the charac-Abstract: The countries of southern Africa have an average forest cover of 32% with most forest situated in the tropics.These dry to moist forests are deciduous with a few evergreen species.The open canopy allows enough light to reach the ground to allow the development of a rich grass layer.Generally, these forests are referred to as woodlands.The article gives an overview of the Miombo, Baikiaea and Mopane woodlands of Angola, Zambia, Namibia, and Botswana and focuses on their composition, wood and non-wood resources.Plantation forestry is briefl y discussed with most information from South Africa, which has the largest commercial forestry sector in the region.Threats to the southern African woodlands are highlighted, and the current status of woodland monitoring and management is summarised.Resumo: Os países da África Austral têm uma cobertura fl orestal média de 32%, com a maioria das fl orestas situadas nos trópicos.Estas fl orestas secas ou húmidas são decíduas, com algumas espécies de folha perene.A copa aberta permite que luz sufi ciente chegue ao solo para permitir o desenvolvimento de uma camada rica de herbáceas.No geral, estas fl orestas são referidas como matas.O artigo apresenta uma visão geral das matas de Miombo, Baikiaea e Mopane de Angola, Zâmbia, Namíbia e Botswana, concentrando-se na sua composição e recursos lenhosos e não-lenhosos.A plantação fl orestal é brevemente discutida, com a maior parte da informação proveniente da África do Sul, a qual tem a maior indústria comercial de exploração fl orestal na região.São destacadas as ameaças às matas da África Austral e é resumido o estado actual de monitorização e gestão das matas.other studies (e.g.Mensah et al., 2017bMensah et al., , 2017a;; Ngubeni, 2015; Seifert et al., 2014;Vermeulen, 2009).The term "forest" is, however, retained when referring to data from FAO's forest resources assessments and collected through remote sensing, as they are based on the FAO defi nition for forest which specifi es a minimum canopy cover of 10% ( FAO, 2012).There is no internationally accepted defi nition for woodland (Putz and Redford, 2010) and we defi ne it as vegetation characterised by trees -woody plants able to reach a minimum height of 5 m (FAO, 2012) -with tree crown cover between 10% Woodland resources and management in southern Africa

Source: Biodiversity & Ecology

DOI: 10.7809/b-e.00337