## 2 Materials and Methods
### South African Forested Landscapes and Study Area  
The study area consists of two sites, (i) the South African Lowveld including the southern section of the Kruger National Park (KNP) and surrounding communal lands in the Mpumalanga and Limpopo Provinces and (ii) the iSimangaliso St-Lucia region in the KwaZulu-Natal Province. The sites were selected to capture the main forest types present in South Africa--including open forests such as savannas or woodlands, denser closed canopy indigenous forests of high biodiversity value, and commercial plantation forests.  
The Lowveld site lies within the semi-arid savanna woodlands biome in the northeastern region of South Africa (Figure 2a). Savannas are characterised by a heterogeneous mixture of herbaceous and woody vegetation [56; 57]. Rainfall is strongly seasonal, with a rainy summer season from October to May and a dry season from June to September. Rainfall occurs mostly in the form of thunderstorms with mean annual precipitation of 650 mm [58]. Mean annual temperatures reach 21 \({}^{\circ}\)C. These savannas are dominated by granitic woody landscapes of fine- and broad-leaf deciduous trees and grassy bushveld with a few scattered shrubs and trees in gabbro or basalt substrates [59; 60]. The woody canopy cover ranges from wooded grassland (5%) to almost closed woodlands (60-70%), with tree height typically varying between 2 and 5 m. Woody Above Ground Biomass (AGB) is generally below 50 tons per hectare (T ha\({}^{-1}\)). Land tenures include state-owned communal lands, privately-owned reserves (Sabie Sands Game Reserve) and state-owned conservation lands in the KNP (Figure 2a). Fuelwood harvesting and livestock ranking are predominant in communal savannas and woodlands.  
The second site is located in the northeastern part of KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, in the iSimangaliso St-Lucia region (Figure 2b). Forested lands consist mostly of indigenous coastal  
Figure 2: The study area consists of two sites: (**a**) The Lowveld study site in the southern section of the Greater Kruger National Park region in South Africa, and (**b**) the iSimangaliso study site in the uMkhanyakude district in the KwaZulu-Natal province. (**c**) shows the two sites in the South African context. The LiDAR and MISR acquisition footprints and regions of interest are displayed in plain green and solid red line areas, respectively.  
forests (e.g., Dukuduku forest) and commercial forest plantations. This coastal area is characterized by all year round rainfall (with a seasonal minimum between June and September) reaching 1250 mm yr\({}^{-1}\), and a mean temperature of 27 \({}^{\circ}\)C [61; 62]. South African indigenous forests are fragmented into small patches [61; 63]. The Dukuduku coastal forest is the largest remaining indigenous coastal lowland forest patch (estimated around 3500 ha in area) [64]. It is surrounded by informal settlements, a matrix of sugarcane plantations, grassland as well as commercial _Eucalyptus_ forest plantations. The coastal forest in this region is a subtropical moist evergreen broadleaf forest with medium to tall trees which can grow to about 20 m high [59; 61]. The coastal forest region, in and around the Dukuduku forest, is species rich and with a well-developed closed canopy with fairly dense understory shrubs and a tree cover in excess of 70% [61]. The commercial forest plantations are mainly dominated by _Eucalyptus_ spp. [65], with a height of up to 30 m [66]. The _E. grandis_ stands have rotation lengths varying from 6-12 years and the AGB can be relatively high ranging between 106 and 225 (T ha\({}^{-1}\)) [67; 68]. In this manuscript, we refer to Lowveld and iSimangaliso Saint-Lucia for the two sites described above.