The Central African mangroves form the largest area of mangrove swamp in Africa, fringing the Atlantic coast and river mouths from Ghana and Nigeria south through Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola, with its greatest extent on the Niger Delta. These tidal forests are dominated by red mangroves of the genus Rhizophora (including Rhizophora racemosa and Rhizophora harrisonii), the black mangrove Avicennia germinans, and the white mangrove Laguncularia racemosa, with trees reaching up to 45 meters tall in fertile rivermouths and lagoons. The climate is humid and tropical where warm seas and high tides flood into the rivers, grading toward cooler, more temperate conditions in the south, and rainfall spans a wide gradient from a mean of about 750 mm in Angola to roughly 6,000 mm in Cameroon. The mangroves shelter rich communities of oysters, crabs, fish, and birds and support the threatened African manatee and turtles such as the African softshell, with the Sclater's guenon recognized as the ecoregion's flagship species; however, decades of Niger Delta oil spills and clearing for urban and industrial development have heavily degraded the habitat. The introduced Asian palm Nypa fruticans has also spread here as an invasive.
Marker placed inside the RESOLVE 2017 polygon at 4.5°N, 6.1°E.
Climate snapshot for this ecoregion
°C
°F
Current zone range (2011–2040)
13b
Plotwright
CHELSA-derived typical winter month at this ecoregion's bbox grid.
Projected (2041–2070)
13b
Plotwright
Where the CHELSA models say the typical winter month is heading.
Average warming this ecoregion is on track for: +3.3°F by mid-century. SSP3-7.0 (current trajectory) · CHELSA v2.1 bio06 sampled across 10 of 10 points within this ecoregion's bounding box.
At a glance
Dominant biome
Mangroves
Realm
Afrotropic
Approximate area
11,955 sq mi
Conservation tier
Nature Could Reach Half Protected (Dinerstein NNH 2)
About the mangroves biome
Coastal tidal forests of salt-tolerant trees rooted in sheltered estuaries and shorelines of the tropics and subtropics. Mangroves buffer coasts from storms, store large amounts of carbon, and serve as nurseries for fish and shellfish.
Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion
No catalog plants intersect this ecoregion's zone range. As the catalog grows to cover this region's climate band, suggestions will surface here.
Collections for this ecoregion
No curated collection's plants all fit this ecoregion's zone range. We surface a collection only when every member would grow here — partial fits get filtered out rather than mislead. As the catalog and the curated set both grow, this section will fill in.