South America
The distribution of forests in South America is shown in Map 1. This was the product of quite a number of different forest data sets, which caused the forest type mis-matches between contiguous patches of forest which cross national borders. Forests in Brazil that are shown as semi-evergreen moist broadleaf forest are probably not that different from the adjacent lowland evergreen broadleaf rain forest, but had a more seasonal quality that would have been lost had they been lumped with the latter. The vast areas without forest were the Patagonia and Pampas regions of Argentina, the Cerrados of Brazil (although sparse trees and parkland was present for a portion of this) and the Llanos de Mojos of Bolivia. Uruguay has very little forest cover. The high mountainous areas of the Andes do not support forest in many places, and the very dry areas of northern Chile and coastal Peru are not generally forested.
The lowland wet and lowland very moist ecological zones support much of the Amazonian rainforests (Map 2). The alpine ecological zone covers much of the Andes, and the lowland moist with long dry season and the non-tropical dry zones extend across much of the Pampas and the Cerrados. The lowland moist and the premontane moist zones cover much of the area in Brazil that has suffered the most severe deforestation (e.g. the Atlantic coastal forests).
Fig.2 shows that Brazil supported more forest than any other country in South America, by quite a margin. Peru had the next most extensive forests, but they were nearly five times smaller in extent than those of Brazil (Table 1). Both Peru and Brazil have similar percentages of their forests under protection, about 5% (Fig. 2). Venezuela had the greatest percentage of forest under protection of any country in the region (56%). This was mainly due to the almost contiguous protected forest area south of the Orinoco. Chile and Ecuador also had fairly large percentages under protection, but the Falkland Islands, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Suriname and Uruguay had less than 5% under protection. Ten of the 15 territories in the region had less than 10% of their forests under protection (Fig. 2).
There were twenty different forest types recorded for South America (Fig. 1). Seven of these were non-tropical. Both tropical and non-tropical forests had a disturbed category represented, and there were exotic species plantations recorded for the tropical region. Tropical lowland evergreen broadleaf rain forest was the most abundant type, followed by the semi-evergreen moist broadleaf forests. The lowland evergreen broadleaf forests were 15% protected. The tropical sparse trees and parkland category covered a significant area but very little was protected (2.1%, Fig. 1). Of all the forest types the deciduous/semi-deciduous forests had the greatest percentage protected at 37%, although the mangrove type was a close second (Fig. 1). Non-tropical freshwater swamp forest and sclerophyllous dry forest both had less than 1% of their area protected. Twelve of the twenty types were less than 10% protected.
Thorn forest only occurred in three countries, Ecuador, Guyana and Venezuela. It was not protected at all in Guyana and only marginally so in Ecuador (Table 2). Tropical needleleaf forest only occurred in Brazil and Ecuador. Almost all of this forest type in Ecuador was protected and over 10% in Brazil. Argentina had quite a significant amount of sclerophyllous dry forest (tropical and non-tropical) in the region of the Chaco (Map 1, Table 2), but very little of it was protected. Most of the non-tropical freshwater swamp forest in South America occurred in Argentina, and very little of it was under protection (Table 2). Brazil, Chile and Uruguay had significant amounts of the non-tropical sparse trees and parkland categories, but these had little protection. None of the deciduous/semi-deciduous forests in Brazil or Guyana were under protection, and only minimal amounts in Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru. The semi-evergreen moist broadleaf forest in Paraguay was only very minimally protected, as was the lower montane forest in Guyana. There were vast areas of tropical freshwater swamp forest recorded for French Guiana and Guyana, but none of the 6325 km² in the former country were protected and only 7 of the 24 293 km² in the latter. The mangroves in these two countries had no protection.
The lowland very moist ecological zone had the greatest forest cover (Fig. 3). Five other zones had more than 700 000 km² of forest, and all the rest had less than 200 000 km² (Fig.3). All natural tropical forest types except needleleaf forest occurred in more than three different ecological zones. The needleleaf forest in the lowland moist with short dry season zone was quite limited in extent (162 km²) but minimally protected (4 km²). However an examination of Map 1 and Map 2 indicate that these were the Araucaria forests in Brazil, which have been distributed among three different ecological zones. They probably do not differ significantly from zone to zone, and since they have more than 10% under protection in the other two zones, their protection in the lowland moist with short dry season zone is probably not a priority.
Tropical sclerophyllous dry forests, which were only 2% protected in total (Fig. 1), were divided among eight ecological zones. All of these variants were less than 10% protected. Of the vast 199 436 km² of these forests in the lowland sub-dry zone only 674 km² (0.3%) were protected. Much of these were in Bolivia and Paraguay. The non-tropical sclerophyllous dry forests were also only minimally protected (0.4%, Fig. 1), and were distributed among eight different ecological zones. The zone with the greatest cover of these was the lowland sub-dry, and this variant was located in northern Argentina (Map 1, Map 2). Only 11 of the 5703 km² were protected (0.19%). The non-tropical freshwater swamp forest, which had an overall protection of 0.9%, were distributed among 10 ecological zones. Most of these were in the lowland moist with long dry season zone, and these were only 0.16% protected. The non-tropical mixed needleleaf/broadleaf forests occurred in six zones, but were only protected in two. Both of these forest types were recorded for the Falkland Islands and neither was protected there (Table 2). The non-tropical sparse trees and parkland category occurred in 10 zones but only in one zone (where it was most abundant) was there a significant amount under protection (lowland moist with long dry season). The zone with the next greatest amount was premontane moist, in Rio Grande do Sul, and this had only 0.65% protected.
In an attempt to impartially indicate natural, undisturbed forest variants which may be under the most immediate threat of destruction, a list was drawn up that pinpointed those under 100 km2 in extent with none protected. These are variants of relatively limited extent and which do not even have any legal protection; possibly much less actual protection. Some of these forest variants may indeed be truly rare and unprotected types, others are clearly fragments of forest at the end of their ranges, as for example certain types of dry forest should not normally occur in moist ecological zones, or vice versa. An in-depth analysis of these forest variants is outside the scope of this study. There were 22 of the 155 variants in South America that met these criteria, and these are listed below (T=tropical forest type, N=non-tropical forest type):
Three ecological zones had more than 50% of their area forested. These were in the vicinity of the tropical moist forests of the Amazon Basin and neighbouring regions (Map 2, Table 4). Only one zone was more than 10% covered with protected forest, the montane moist zone.
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