Without being a tropical rainforest, MAFOU is a dry forest of 52,400 hectares and occupies the MAFOU-NIGER interriver where it plays important ecological roles. Thus constituting one of the last formations of open forests in Upper Niger, MAFOU is, according to the Confort/Janine report, relatively intact, which provides the population with income that is not very valued but necessary for the self-subsistence economy that characterizes this region of Upper Niger.