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.

Primary forest vegetation has disappeared from most of the country, and real rainforest is now found only in small areas in the east and north-west, in Sambirano. Elsewhere it has been destroyed by fires and clearing and been replaced by a degraded formation ­ the savoka, a shrub forest rich in ubiquitous species and bamboos. Following further fires and clearing, the savoka is gradually degrading into savannah in the east and centre. Savannah covers vast areas in the centre and west, with such species as baobab and various euphorbias, suited to a long dry season, growing in the west. The south and south-west are mostly covered by bush vegetation in the semi-desert regions, with a large number of succulent and thorny species.

The following description of Madagascar's woody vegetation is basically a summary of Humbert and Cours Darne (1965) with supplementary details taken from FAO (1972).