Categories · Geographic Regions
West Africa
The West Africa Threatened Conifer Region is limited to the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe and Cameroon. The region has only two conifer species: Podocarpus milanjianus whose occurrence in the upper limits of the sub-montane forests of Cameroon represents a disjunction from the main distribution in eastern Africa and Afrocarpus mannii which is endemic to the island of São Tomé in the Gulf of Guinea, about 300 km from the northwest coast of Gabon.
The island forms part of the Cameroon volcanic mountain line, a 1000 km long chain of volcanoes that includes islands in the Gulf of Guinea and mountains that extend along the border region of eastern Nigeria and western Cameroon. Afrocarpus mannii, the only threatened conifer in the Region, occurs on the slopes and summit of the volcano Pico de São Tomé (2142 m). The main threat in this Region is from deforestation for oil palm plantations and subsistence farming.
There is 1 taxa in the category – West Africa:
