Definitions

• TROPICAL MOIST FORESTS (TMFs): Include all closed forests in the humid tropics with two main forest types: the tropical rain forest and the tropical moist deciduous forest. Tropical rain forest is found in permanently humid areas, i.e., those with, at most, only limited seasonality in rainfall distribution, while tropical moist deciduous forest, also called monsoon forest, is found in areas with a distinct dry season. The TMFs are characterized by low variability in annual temperature and high levels of rainfall (>200 cm annually). In the Holdridge life zones classification scheme, the TMFs include the moist forest, the wet forest, and the rain forest. The TMFs are located mostly in the tropical moist and humid climatic domains, but they also include small areas of gallery forests in the tropical dry domain.
• DEGRADED FORESTS: moist forest cover where disturbances were observed over a period shorter or equal than 2.5 years (900 days). The methodology assumes that the duration of the disturbance – and, consequently, the period over which the disturbance is detectable in satellite imagery – is a proxy of the disturbance impact, where disturbance of longer duration corresponds to higher impact on the forest and the higher the risk of having a permanent conversion of the TMF. All disturbance events for which the impacts are detectable over a period of more than 2.5 years (900 days) are considered as deforestation processes.