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ZAMBIA - ATLAS OF OUR CHANGING ENVIRONMENT
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Exotic forest nursery
FD, 2008
Forests are an important habitat for wildlife.
Pexi from Helsinki Rock City/flickr.com, 2008
Southern
Northwestern
Luapula
Eastern
Copperbelt
Western
Central
Northern
Lusaka
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Percentage
Figure 2.10 Percentage forest estate by province
Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2008)
Indigenous forest is estimated to make up 66 per
cent (49.9 million hectares) of the total land cover
of Zambia. The total growing stock, that is the total
volume of forest, across all land uses for Zambia is
approximately 2.9 billion cubic metres of which the
majority, 2.1 billion cubic metres, is semi-evergreen
miombo-dominated forests. Over 65 per cent of
the forests in Zambia are secondary growth forests
with active growth potential (Food and Agriculture
Organization, 2008).
Forests
Of the total amount of land covered by forest, about
31 million hectares (63 per cent) are located on
customary land, 12 million hectares on state land, and
5 million hectares are privately owned forests with
legal land titles. However, 61 per cent of the forest
and other wooded land which comprise bushes,
shrubs, wooded grasslands and thickets are disturbed
in one way or another by human activities (ILUA,
2008; Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2008).