Hi

Interestning topic. I spent half a year in the mid nineties mapping land use changes in Tanzania. I  was astonished that areas in scale 1:50000 maps that were symbolized as forest and labeled "scattered cultivation" in reality was intensely cultivated agroforestry areas with population densities approaching 1000/km². Just vaguely related to your question, but it is is an experience that the field surveying during mapping in East Africa could not have been too intense.

Thank you for your answer, Ivar. What an interesting experience!

The Spanish colonial forest cartography located, more or less, the especies with industrial use (mainly Aucoumea klaineana for plywood). I was wondering if in other cases it was the same or rather the cartography included other ecological or botanic features. I would like to compare our cartography with other models elaborated in the same period.

Best regards

The French Institute in Pondicherry, India, made maps of vegetation in the WEstern Ghats of peninsular India during the second half of the 20th century. Working Plans for Indian forests exist since the establishment of the indian Forest Department. They are quite detailed with regard to vegetation and agriculture.

It's worth looking at the Dutch, too. They were major tropical colonists in Indonesia. An excellent collection of colonial-era maps is available at http://maps.library.leiden.edu/apps/s7