World forest resources:Tropical forests

An aerial view of a tropical rainforest. Image credit MediaWiki

• The world’s forests can be divided into three broad classes.
• These are tropical, temperate deciduous forests and coniferous forests.

Tropical forests

• These are lowland and low latitude luxuriant forests.
• They comprise tropical rain forests in the Amazon Basin, coastal West Africa and the Congo Basin as well as South East Asia, among others.

Composition of tropical rainforests

• The rainforests consists of a wide variety of species over a small area.
• The forest contains mainly three layers of vegetation.
• The top layer mainly composed of scattered tall trees growing to heights of over 40 metres at the top of the forest view. These trees are called emergent.
• The second layer which is a closed canopy of trees with heights of between 25 and 35 metres.
• The third layer which is an under canopy of fairly dense trees competing for light between 15 and 20 metres.
• Below the under canopy there is very little undergrowth due to the absence of light.
• Dense bush can however, be observed in areas of open forest resulting from human interference or along river valleys.
• Climbers such as lianas entangle the tall tree species in search of light.
• The forest consists of valuable tree species for hardwood timber.
• These include the mahogany, teak, iron heart, ebony, sapele, green heart, rosewood which are in demand locally and abroad for the making of expensive furniture and construction industry.
• The forests also contain valuable trees crops providing raw materials for industry.
• These include rubber, gums, oils, cocoa, dyes, camphor and several crops such as bananas and over 25% of the worlds known medicines.

To access more topics go to the O Level Geography Notes page