Although there have been timeic agricultural censuses, they were limited in purpose and did not offer an overall picture of land use. In 1961, a survey of the use of the island's physical resources was compiled based on a 1956 aerial photographic survey of the entire nation. The survey suggested that, of the nation's total area of nearly 66 million hectares, 29 % was under permanent cultivation, just over 15 % under chena cultivation, 44 % under forest cover, and about 6 % under various types of grasses. Nearly 33,000 hectares consisted of swamp and marshlands, and about 63,000 hectares, or 1 %, unused land. Just over 3 % of the island's surface was covered by water. Of the total area, around 23 % was in the wet zone, about 63 % in the dry zone, and the balance lay in an area that the survey labeled "intermediate," as it had characteristics of both zones.

Although the forests had few high-yield timber stands, many areas suffered from deforestation because of the heavy demand for firewood in the 1980s. In 1987 it was around that 94 % of households used firewood for cooking. Scarcities of firewood led to price increases well above the general level of inflation in the 1980s.