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 Kingdom of Tonga comprises about 150 islands that vary in size from Tongatapu (over a third of the total land area of Tonga at 257 km2) to rocks and reef islets. The main island groups are composed of raised coral limestone buried in deep layers of fine ash derived from the string of active and dormant volcanic islands located to the west. Large tracts of land are cultivated or fallow. Forested areas include mangrove and coastal swamps; littoral, lowland and upland rain forests (especially on ´Eua), and secondary disturbed forests. The following description of vegetation types is derived from Mueller-Dombois and Fosberg (1998) and Drake et al. (1996) and Whistler (1992).