Country

Burundi: 3 ecoregions. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Three Afrotropic ecoregions meet in Burundi. The Albertine Rift montane forests, ranked Nature Imperiled, hold the highland spine along the Congo-Nile divide; the Victoria Basin forest-savanna, also Nature Imperiled, reaches the east; and the Central Zambezian wet miombo woodlands touch the lower, warmer margins. That places this small, hilly country at a three-way junction of montane rainforest, forest-savanna mosaic, and miombo woodland. Elevation does the sorting: cool, misty conditions on the ridges suit montane forest trees and an evergreen understory, while the lower slopes and valleys favor savanna grasses and seasonally deciduous woodland species adapted to a marked dry season. With two of the three ecoregions imperiled, native-forest plantings carry real conservation weight here.