Updated Interactive Reference Resource: Vegetation Map For Africa

From a Joint Announcement:

Tree enthusiasts on the move can now identify species as they go, and at the same time gain a deeper understanding of their natural environment, thanks to a new version of vegetationmap4africa.
The new version of the map (ver. 2.0), which has been developed by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), the University of Copenhagen and partners.
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The vegetationmap4africa currently covers eight Eastern and Southern African countries: Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The website integrates tutorials to get users started.
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The map shows the distribution of ‘potential natural vegetation’ across the landscapes of the countries. These landscapes contain a complex patchwork of many types of forests, woodlands and bushlands, such as ‘Afromontane moist transitional forest’ around Kenya’s Mount Kenya region; ‘Wetter miombo woodland’ around Zambia’s Copperbelt region; ‘Lake Victoria drier peripheral semi-evergreen Guineo-Congolian rainforest’ around Lake Victoria in Uganda, and so forth. Each vegetation type is accompanied by a factsheet (accessible via a few clicks on the web or taps on the smart phone) that documents tree species that are known to occur within the vegetation type.
A species selection tool integrated in the map can be used to find ‘the right tree for the right place’ depending on the main goods (such as fruit, fodder or timber) and services (such as shade and erosion control) desired.
Tree species are grouped by type of uses, making it convenient to choose species for land restoration in the location of interest. An Excel sheet allows the user to select and rank species by use.
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Each of the tree species is further linked to a wealth of online databases through the Agroforestry Species Switchboard. By checking information on a particular web-based database that is linked through the ‘switchboard’, users can refine the selection of suitable tree species.

Read the Complete Announcement
Direct to VegetationmMap4Africa

Filed under: News, Patrons and Users