Small areas of mangrove forests exist in the estuary of the Juba River and on the coast between the Juba River and the Kenyan border. Here, trees such as Avicennia marina, Rhizophora mucronata, Ceriops somalensis, Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, Sonneratia alba and Xylocarpus obovatus reach a height of 10 to 15 m in thick clumps. North of Mogadishu, only dispersed mangroves are found with trees 5 to 6 m high. Some pure stands of Avicennia marina may occur. Larger mangrove forests exist also on the Bojun Islands in the Indian Ocean. The mangroves are clearfelled by the local population for export to the Arabian Peninsula, causing a net reduction of their extent.
FAO, UNEP. 1981. Tropical forest resources assessment project. Forest resources of tropical Africa. Part II: Country biefs. FAO, UNEP. 586 pp.
Year |
Area |
Source |
Trend |
Methodology/Comments |
1975 |
10 000 |
Snedaker, S.C. 1991. Personal communication. |
X |
Cited in: Fisher, P and Spalding, M.D. 1993. Protected areas with mangrove habitat. Draft Report World Conservation Centre, Cambridge, UK. 60pp. Information extracted from a letter to Chapman, V.J. from Booth, G.A. (Ministry of Livestock, Ministry and Range) in 1975. |
1992 |
91 000 |
Spalding, M.D., Blasco, F. and Field, C.D., eds. 1997. World Mangrove Atlas. The International Society for Mangrove Ecosystems, Okinawa, Japan. 178 pp. |
Map analysis. Scale 1:1 000 000. The scale of the map is too low to provide a reliable estimate. |
The estimates for 1980, 1990 and 2000 have been calculated applying FRA 2000 (FAO, 2001) annual forest change rate for 1990-2000 (-1 percent) to the most recent, reliable figure.
