Ecoregions of Benin
Atakora mountains, North Benin, close to Batia, Pendjari Nationalpark. Source: Martin Wegmann/Wikimedia Commons.
Ecoregions of Countries Collection 
Benin has four ecoregions as shown in the figure below:
- West Sudanian savanna(yellow) covers most on the interior on Benin
- Guinean forest-savanna mosaic (light green) covers most of the coastal plain
- Eastern Guinean forests(green) covers one region of northwestern Benin
- Nigerian lowland forests (dark green) extend into the southeast corner of Benin
While Central African mangroves (pink) cover much of the coastal zone in this part of Africa, they are absent from the Benin coast.
Ecoregions of Benin. Source: World Wildlifee Fund
In the north and the northwest of Benin the Reserve du W du Niger and Pendjari National Park attract tourists eager to see elephants, lions, antelopes, hippopotami and monkeys.
Contents
[[West Sudanian savanna] ]
The West Sudanian Savanna is a hot, dry, wooded savanna composed mainly of large tree species and long "elephant" grass.
%2c_Ghana.jpg)
African elephant (Loxodonta africana), Ghana (Photograph by Kate Newman) The habitat has been greatly reduced, degraded, and fragmented by agricultural activities, fire, and clearance for wood and charcoal, while populations of most of the larger mammal species have been decimated by over-hunting. Although many protected areas exist, most are under-resourced "paper parks" with little active enforcement on the ground.
The historically hot climate and poor infrastructure have resulted in little development of tourism in the region.
There has been significant loss and fragmentation of the original wooded savanna habitat, especially in areas of high human population density such as Nigeria. The remaining blocks of habitat are found mainly in protected areas, which have been established in most of the countries of the ecoregion.
The total area of protected lands is over 90,000 km2. This is a relatively large area, but only represents 6.7% of this huge ecoregion. There are also damaging activities occurring in many of these protected sites, which are resulting in further declines in large animal populations. Protected areas in this ecoregion include the transboundary ‘W’ National Parks in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Benin.
Guinean forest-savanna mosaic
The Guinean Forest-Savanna Mosaic runs through West Africa, dividing the Guinean rain forest from the Sudanian savanna. The interlacing forest, savanna, and grassland [[habitat]s] are highly dynamic, and the proportion of forest versus other habitat components has varied greatly over time.
These forest-savanna ecotones may offer critical habitat for differentiation and speciation. A number of large charismatic mammal species are found here, but national parks attract few visitors.
The protected areas system is under funded and only covers two percent of the area of this ecoregion.
Eastern Guinean forests
The Eastern Guinean Forest comprises a broad swath of land extending from western Côte d’Ivoire to eastern Ghana and extending into the Togo Hills, which lie mostly in Togo but extend across the border to easternmost Ghana, with one outlier in Benin.
There is a high diversity of non-human primates here, including western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus). Thirteen amphibians are strictly endemic to the ecoregion and, together with plants and butterflies, these groups illustrate the clearest difference from the contiguous lowland forests further west.
The threats facing this ecoregion are numerous and diverse. Considerable areas of forestland have been converted to farmlands, often using a rotation ‘farmbush’ farming system. The total area under protection is relatively small, and pressure to extract forest resources, especially timber, fuel wood, and charcoal remains high due to a ready timber export market and increasing urban population centers such as Abidjan and Accra. Although very little timber is exported from Benin (and hardly any from Togo), Côte d’Ivoire, and Ghana are large exporters from this ecoregion.
Habitat loss and hunting for bushmeat has recently caused the extinction of one non-human primate subspecies, Miss Waldron’s colobus (Piliocolobus badius waldroni), and the endemic Togo mouse (Leimacomys buettneri) may also be extinct.
The extent of forests in Togo and Benin is now greatly reduced relative to what existed at the turn of the century, with existing small fragments made up of semi-evergreen or deciduous forest. The Lama forest in south-central Benin is dominated by plant associations that include Milicia excelsa, Triplochiton scleroxylon, Antiaris africana, Diospyros mespiliformis, Afzelia africana, and Ceiba pentandra. Other trees common in these regions include Cola grandifolia, Vitex spp., Celtis spp., Khaya grandifolia, and Holoptelea spp.
In Benin, efforts at protecting some portion of the natural closed forest are underway in the Lama Forest.
Nigerian lowland forests
The Nigerian Lowland Forest ecoregion is confined to a narrow band along the coast in the southwest of Nigeria, from the eastern margin of the Dahomey Gap in Benin to the Niger River in the west.
Though the Nigerian Lowland Forests ecoregion is relatively small and the rates of endemism are quite low it contains five endemic animal species, including an endangered primate, the white-throated guenon (Cercopithecus erythrogaster), as well as chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and elephants (Loxodonta africana). This ecoregion is also one of the most densely populated areas in Africa, and already showed high levels of human activity before colonial times. As a result the forest has been fragmented for a long period of time, a process that has accelerated considerably over the last four decades, leaving only a few remaining forest blocks. Though a number of protected areas have been established they are presently too small, and lack adequate protection. Without increased protection efforts, it is unlikely that the viable sections of forest will survive long into the future.
Context
Ecoregions are areas that:
[1] Share a large majority of their species and ecological dynamics;
[2] Share similar environmental conditions; and,
[3] Interact ecologically in ways that are critical for their long-term persistence.
Scientists at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), have established a classification system that divides the world in 867 terrestrial ecoregions, 426 freshwater ecoregions and 229 marine ecoregions that reflect the distribution of a broad range of fauna and flora across the entire Earth.
See also
References
- Happold, D.C.D. 1987. The mammals of Nigeria. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- Hollis, G.E., W.M. Adams, and M. Aminu-Kano. 1993. The Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands: environment, economy and sustainable development. IUCN, Gland and Switzerland.
- East, R. compiler. 1999. African Antelope Database 1998. IUCN/SSC Antelope Specialist Group. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, United Kingdom.
- East, R. 2000. Antelope captures in Niokola-Koba National Park, Senegal. Gnusletter, 19(2): 4-6.
- Udvardy, M. D. F. 1975. A classification of the biogeographical provinces of the world. IUCN Occassional Paper No 18.
- Kingdon, J. 1997. The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals. Academic Press. 476p.
- Larsen, T.B. 1994. The butterflies of Ghana - their implications for conservation and sustainable use. Unpublished report, London.
- Lawson, G.W. editor. 1986. Plant ecology in West Africa: systems and process. John Wiley and Son, Chichester.
- Leach, G. and R. Mearns. 1988. Beyond the Fuelwood Crisis. Earthscan Publications Ltd., London, United Kingdom.
- Lieberman, D., M. Lieberman and C. Martin. 1987. Notes on seeds in elephant dung from Bia National Park, Ghana. Biotropica 19:365-369.
- Martin, C. 1991. The rainforests of West Africa: ecology-threats-conservation. Birhauser-Verlad, Basel, Switzerland.
- Mensah-Ntiamoa, A. Y. 1981. 1989. Pre-feasibility study on wildlife potentials in the Kakum and Assin-Attandanso Forest Reserves – Central Region – Ghana. Unpublished. Department of Game and Wildife, Accra, Ghana.
- McGraw, W. S. 1998. Three monkeys nearing extinction in the forest reserves of eastern Côte d'Ivoire. Oryx 32:233-236.
- Merz, G. 1986. Movement patterns and group size of the African forest elephant Loxodonta africana cyclotis in the Taï National Park, Ivory Coast. African Journal of Ecology 24:133-136.
- Munslow, B., Y. Katerere, A. Ferf, and P. O'Keefe. 1988. The Fuelwood Trap: a Study of the SADCC Region. Earthscan, London, United Kingdom.
- Nketiah, K. S., E. B. Hagan and S. T. Addo. 1988. The Charcoal Cycle in Ghana – A Baseline Study. Report Prepared for UNDP, Accra, Ghana.
- Oates, J. F., M. Abedi-Lartey, W. S. McGraw, T. T. Struhsaker and G. H. Whitesides. 2000. Extinction of a West African Red Colobus monkey. Conservation Biology 14:1526-1532.
- Owusu, J. G. K., C. K. Manu, G. K. Ofosu and Y. Ntiamoa-Baidu. 1989. Report of the Working Group on Forestry and Wildlife (Revised version). A Report Prepared for the Environmental Protection Council, Accra, Ghana.
- Robinson, J. G. and E. L. Bennett, editors. 2000. Hunting for Sustainability in Tropical Forests. Columbia University Press, New York.
- Sayer et al 1992a. Rainforest atlas
- Sayer, J. A., A. Green and D. Bourque. 1992b. Benin and Togo. Pages 97-101 in J. A. Sayer, C. S. Harcourt, and N. M. Collins, editors. The Conservation Atlas of Tropical Forests: Africa. IUCN and Simon & Schuster, Cambridge.
- Schiøtz, A. 1999. Treefrogs of Africa. Edition Chimaira, Meckenheim, Germany.
- Stattersfield, A. J., M. J. Crosby, A. J. Long, and D. C. Wege, D. C. 1998. Endemic Bird Areas of the World. Priorities for Biodiversity Conservation. BirdLife International. Cambridge, United Kingdom.
- Vooren, F. and J. Sayer. 1992. Cote d’Ivoire. Pages 133-142 in J. A. Sayer, C. S. Harcourt and N. M. Collins, editors. The Conservation Atlas of Tropical Forests: Africa. IUCN and Macmillan Publishers, United Kingdom.
- Voorhoeve, A. G. 1965. Liberian High Forest Trees. Centre for Agricultural Publications and Documentation, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
- Waitkuwait, W. E. 1992. Restauration d’un ecosysteme forestier: contribution de l’amenagement de la faune. Pages 203-214 in A. P. Vooren, W. Schork, W. A. Blokhuis and A. J. C. Spijkerman, editors. Compte rendu seminaire sur l’amaenagement integre des forets denses humides et des zones africoles peripheriques, Tropenbos Series 1. Pays-Bas, La Fondation Tropenbos, Wageningen.
- WCMC 2000. Protected areas database.
- White, F. 1983. The vegetation of Africa, a descriptive memoir to accompany the UNESCO/AETFAT/UNSO Vegetation Map of Africa (3 Plates, Northwestern Africa, Northeastern Africa, and Southern Africa, 1:5,000,000). UNESCO, Paris.
- White, F. 1983. The vegetation of Africa, a descriptive memoir to accompany the UNESCO/AETFAT/UNSO Vegetation Map of Africa (3 Plates, Northwestern Africa, Northeastern Africa, and Southern Africa, 1:5,000,000). UNESCO, Paris.
- WWF. 1998. A conservation assessment of terrestrial ecoregions of Africa: Draft proceedings of a workshop, Cape Town, South Africa, August 1998. World Wildlife Fund, Washington, DC, USA.
