The Forest Outliers in the Guinea Zone of Northern Nigeria

In certain districts of northern Nigeria the vast thinly populated stretches of the Guinea Zone savannas are punctuated with small 'islands' of dense forest, known by the Hausa name of 'Kurmi' (plural 'Kurame'), which possess many of the features and species of rain forest. Although the patches are rarely more than two or three hundred acres (80-120 ha) in extent, they are often rich in valuable timber-much richer than comparable areas of true rain forest-so that they are of some commercial importance. Apart from the interest they possess as unusual communities and marginal habitats of rain-forest species, they present major ecological problems in the reasons for their localization and their bQundaries. It was already appreciated by foresters who had examined them that despite the frequently artificial character of their existing boundaries, many of them appear to have increased in size in relatively recent times. It is often the apparently younger marginal zone which is richest in valuable timber. Has there been a genuine recent expansion, and if so, why? Do the kurame represent in any way relics of a formerly more extensive forest? Do they represent a type of forest which could still cover large areas of country? These problems are not merely of scientific interest, but have a considerable bearing on the silvicultural treatment both of the kurame and of the savanna woodland in forest reserves.