FAO Forestry country profiles - natural woody vegetation

Forest types

Forest cover map

The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

Map source: Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000, base map: ESRI

The above map is an extract from the Global Forest Cover map produced as part of FRA 2000. Please refer to FRA Working Paper 19 for a background to the production of the map.

Almost all Burkina Faso is covered by tree or wooded savannah with mixed forest and grass formations, generally very open, poor in commercial species and having suffered extensive human encroachment. In the southern part of the country there are some remains of closed forest; patches of dry closed forest, gallery forest, etc. In the northern part is thorn steppe in which the woody layer is very open and the grassy layer is short, broken and sometimes absent. The vegetation has suffered considerable human interference, and some human-induced formations have thus become major features ­ for example cad (Acacia albida) , borassus palm (Borassus aethiopium ) and shea (Butyrospermum parkii ).

For the purposes of describing the woody vegetation, forests have been divided into closed broadleaved forests, open broadleaved forests and shrub formations, but it should be noted that the whole range of transitional forms also occurs (Terrible; 1975, 1976).