Dry forests and woodlands are a major type of ecosystem, existing in all developing regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Proportionately, they are most prominent in Africa. On that continent, it is the drier forests, from the Acacia-Commiphora Sahelian woodlands bordering desert margins to open woodlands bordering more humid ecosystems that support the most people and livestock of all the continent’s ecosystems.

Baseline data regarding the current status of dry forests in the region has mainly been obtained from the FAO Forest Resource Assessment 2000. This assessment uses the following definitions:

Tropical Dry Forest

Climatic Criteria: Tropical climate, with...

This section provides the justification, framework and over-arching objectives for CIFOR’s research on dry forests. While the focus is on Africa, many of the key themes are part of CIFOR’s medium term plan and are also globally relevant; it is hoped that the research will also be implemented in dry forest areas on other continents, funding permitted.

Dry forests (defined in Box 2.1) constitute one of the major terrestrial ecosystems, existing in all developing regions of the world: Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Proportionately, they are most prominent in Africa, where drier forests in all their varieties - from the...

After an extensive prioritization exercise, five themes and numerous activities were selected for consideration in a Dry Forest Programme (Section 2). This Section summarises the sub-set of themes and activities that will be tackled in a programme of policy dialogue.

“Degradation and conversion of dry forests is far more advanced than that of wet forests… they occupy more area than wet forests, have been of greater use to humans, and are still poorly known” (Harold Mooney and colleagues, in Bullock et al., 1995).

Extensive justification for more attention to be paid to dry forests has been given in the Sections...