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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

One-Tenth of World's Trees Face Extinction

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

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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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.

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