Map Projection

Interrupted Goode's Homolosine

Notes

Forest ecoregions comprise 86 of the 136 terrestrial ecoregions. They are aggregated here into 6 major habitat types.

Map Description

In an attempt to identify priority areas for conservation, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF-U.S.) has conducted an analysis of ecoregions representing the world’s 19 terrestrial, freshwater, and marine major habitat types (MHTs). MHTs are geographic areas sharing environmental conditions, habitat structure, and patterns of biological complexity, and containing species with similar guild structures and adaptations. WWF-U.S. also developed the "Global 200" categorization for ecoregions that are outstanding representatives of the world’s diverse ecosystems. At the time of writing, 232 ecoregions were identified, comprising 136 terrestrial, 35 freshwater, and 61 marine ecoregions (Olson and Dinerstein, 1998: 509). The importance of forests for global biodiversity conservation is clear. Forest ecosystems account for 6 of the 12 terrestrial MHTs, and these 6 forest MHTs contain nearly two-thirds of all terrestrial ecoregions. This map shows the global distribution of forest ecoregions.