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.

The archipelago of the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros consists of three volcanic (basaltic) islands in the southwest Indian Ocean - Njazidja or Grand Comoro, Nzwani or Anjouan, and Mwali or Mohéli - plus a number of small islands closely grouped around the main three. Njazidja has an uneven relief, dominated by two volcanic cones, Karthala in the south and Grille in the north, reaching 2 361 and 1 087 m respectively; the rest of the island consists of the small plains of interior basins and the coastal plains. Mwali is the smallest of the three main islands, with a mountainous ridge reaching 790 m at its highest point; the eastern part of the island has a gentler landscape, not exceeding 300 m. The highest summit on the third island, Nzwani, is Pic Tingui, at 1 580 m. The climate depends basically on the wind, and the archipelago is influenced by the Indian monsoon (northeasterly) during the hot wet season and the trade winds (southerly and southeasterly) during the cool dry season. The soils on this archipelago of volcanic origin have evolved little, and they have only a secondary effect on the distribution of different types of vegetation. Rainfall, fog, altitude and human pressure are the main elements determining the structure and floristic composition of plant formations. Comorian flora includes 935 vascular plants, over half of which are indigenous and 136 endemic. Njazidja contains the widest range of forest formations: closed moist forest, woody montane vegetation, fairly open transitional forest, xerophilous thickets and bush savannah. The floristic composition of these formations changes as altitude increases, and they become lower and more open. However, shrub formations cover the largest areas. Mwali is the most sparsely populated and best preserved of the three islands, and has the highest percentage of forested areas. The natural forest forms an unbroken cover, continuing over the crest of Mount Mledjele (765 m). The largest forests on Nzwani are those of N´Tingui and Moya, although only remnants exist today, as a result of heavy human pressure. Nzwani is thus the least forested of all the islands in the archipelago, and its woody cover is mostly shrub fallow. Apart from the very steep southern slopes of the N´Tingui mountain massif, the remainder of the island´s forests are severely degraded as a result of agricultural encroachment.