Forests

The way in which forest land is owned directly influences the status of the forest, its condition and the way in which it is managed. The greater the security of local forest tenure, the stronger the interest and will of the community towards its security.

Of significant concern to governments in Southeast Asia is the rapid and extensive deforestation and forest degradation that has occurred in the recent past and in some cases is still occurring. The purpose of this publication is to assist stakeholders in the lower Mekong countries develop and implement ecologically and socio-economically sound forest rehabilitation policies and practices.

The eastern African coastal strip contains a tiny chain of patches of lowland tropical dry forest. They were previously considered to be of low conservation priority in terms of endemism and species diverstiy, but research since the mid-1980s has shown that their biological richness is comparable to other important tropical forest types in Africa.

The two neighbouring countries, Libera and Sierra Leone, are situated in the heart of the Upper Guinea forest region. This region is one of the earth's most biologically diverse and was originally covered by a continuous block of dense tropical rainforest, ranging from Guinea south through Sierra Leone, and Liberia to Ivory Coast and Ghana.