Africa’s forests have largely been destroyed or fragmented and remain under further threat from logging, agricultural expansion and fire.

Timber and non-timber forest products have an important role in the economies of many African countries and thousands of people depend on forests for their livelihoods. Forests also provide a range of environmental services, including protection of water, soil and biodiversity and carbon storage.

Africa Online looks at how Africa came to be one of the continents with the lowest rate of forest cover. During the 1980s, Africa lost an estimated 47 million hectares of forest and by 1995 another 19 million hectares had been lost.

“Africa's forests are threatened by a combination of factors including agricultural expansion, commercial harvesting, increased firewood collection, inappropriate land and tree tenure regimes, heavy livestock grazing, and accelerated urbanization and industrialization,” says the article. Drought, civil wars, bush fires and hunting also contribute significantly to forest degradation, and mining and exploration have also depleted forests.

Tree plantations and agroforestry are increasingly important aspects of forest rehabilitation, but it is an uphill struggle to supply enough timber, firewood and other needed through afforestation.

What remains of Africa’s forests - 520 million hectares - is concentrated in the tropical zones of Western and Central, Eastern and Southern Africa and heavily fragmented and degraded. The most intact forests remain in Congo Kinshasa partly due to the country’s poor transportation system.

Many countries are taking steps to protect their forests through better regulation of logging industries and reforestation projects but forests are still not valued as they should be.

Read the full story: Forests and deforestation in Africa - the wasting of an immense resource