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Liberia

Vegetation description

Mangrove forests are characteristic of silty lagoons and along some rivers in the immediate vicinity of the Atlantic coast. The main species are Rhizopora racemosa, R. harrisonii, R. mangle and Avicennia africana. These trees rarely grow taller than 6 meters, probably because of poor soil conditions; they are always higher when closer to river channels than in other inundated areas, where the height may be limited to 2 to 2.5 m.

Voorhoeve, A.G. 1965. Liberian high forest trees: A systematic botanical study of the 75 most important or frequent high forest trees, with reference to numerous related species. The Netherlands, Waganigen.

National level mangrove area estimates

Year

Area
(ha)

Source

Trend

Methodology/Comments

1980

40 000

FAO, UNEP. 1981. Tropical Forest Resources Assessment Project, Forest Resources of Tropical Africa. Part II: Country Briefs FAO, UNEP 586pp.

 

Tentatively estimation and updating based on: International Cooperation Adm. 1960. Third Report on Forestry in Liberia 1959. Washinghton

1981

18 748

Hammermaster E. T. 1985 Project Report on Forest Resources Mapping of Liberia. Field document 1, LIR/008/LIR. 29 pp. unpublished

X

Remote sensing

1987

45 000

Commission of the European Communities. 1987. Mangroves of Africa and Madagascar. Conservation and reclamation: The Mangroves of Madagascar. CML, Centre for Environmental Studies, University of Leyden, 24 pp.

 

Secondary reference, no primary source provided. The "Year" is the publication year.

1990

20 000

Nature and Resources. 1990. Managing the Coastal Environment. 26 (2).

 

Cited in: Momoh, C.H. 1993. Liberian Mangrove Ecosystem. In Diop, E.S. 1993 Conservation and sustainable utilization of mangrove forests in Latin America and Africa regions, Part II - Africa. p. 71-77 Mangrove Ecosystems Technical Reports vol.3 ITTO/ISME Project PD114/90. Okinawa, Japan, ISME. 262 pp.

Rough estimate

1990

600

Sayer J.A., Harcourt C.S. and Collins N.M. 1992. The Conservation Atlas of Tropical Forest in Africa. IUCN. 033357757-4

 

Remote sensing

1992

20 070

Hughes, R.H. and Hughes, J.S. 1992. A Directory of African Wetlands. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK/UNEP, Nairobi, Kenya/WCMC, Cambridge, UK. 820 pp

 

Analysis of maps and/or remote sensing imageries. No specific scale is given. The "Year" is the publication year. Mangroves occupy an undefined percentage of this extent.

1995

19 000

Saenger, P. and Bellan, M.F. 1995. The Mangrove vegetation of the Atlantic coast of Africa. Universitè de Toulouse Press, Toulouse 96 pp.

X

Secondary reference, no primary source provided.

The "Year" is the publication year.

1997

42 700

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 undated.

The “Year” is the publication year

Trends in mangrove area extent over time

The 1980, 1990 and 2000 figures are based on expert estimate. No significant changes appear to have occurred in the extent of mangrove area in the last twenty years.


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