One-Tenth of World's Trees Face Extinction
9/2/98
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE
The title is pretty self-explanatory, and alarming. The biological
fabric of the Earth if fraying.
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: One-tenth of world's trees face extinction-report
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright, contact source to reprint
Date: August 25, 1998
LONDON (Reuters) - Ten percent of the world's tree species face
extinction through felling, forest fires and poor forest management,
conservationists said in a report on Tuesday.
``With 77 species already extinct, this report has now confirmed our
worst nightmare,'' Dr Steve Howard of the World Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF) said in a statement.
The ``World List of Threatened Trees'' details more than 8,753 of the
world's 80,000 to 100,000 tree species as being in danger of
extinction.
The list is the product of a three-year project by the World
Conservation Monitoring Center, partly financed by the WWF, and the
Species Survival Commission of the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
Howard called on governments meeting in Geneva this week for the
Intergovernmental Forum on Forests to act quickly to save the trees.
``The governments gathering this week must now realize the sense of
urgency to increase forest protection, eliminate illegal logging and
improve forest management,'' Howard said.
The list includes several species with just one tree left, such as
China's single remaining Carpinus putoensis which survives fenced off
at the edge of a sparse forest, the victim of deforestation.
Conservationists said most living species were dependent for their
survival on trees, particularly in tropical forests which were home to
90 percent of the world's species.
``If we can't save these elephants of the plant world, then the
prognosis for all other species which depend on trees is
frightening,'' said the IUCN's Dr Wendy Strahm.