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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Plant
Survey Reveals Depth of Species Extinction Crisis
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
4/20/98
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY by EE
A
recently concluded study, some 20 years in the making, has
remarkably
identified that _at least_ one in eight plant species
worldwide
(and one in three in the United States) is threatened by
extinction. This convulsion of loss of the Earth's
primary producers
is
tanamount to ecocide. Anything short of
immediate, well-funded
and
global efforts to conserve intact vegetative habitats, while
rehabilitating
and restoring degraded areas, is mere tokenism. The
sky is
falling, as a "whole chunk of creation is at risk."
g.b.
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TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Plant Survey Reveals Many Species
Threatened With
Extinction
Date: April 9, 1998
Byline: By WILLIAM K. STEVENS
At
least one of every eight plant species in the world -- and nearly
one of
three in the United States -- is under threat of extinction,
according
to the first comprehensive worldwide assessment of plant
endangerment.
The
assessment, which required more than 20 years of work by botanists
and
conservationists around the globe, added nearly 34,000 plant
species
to the World Conservation Union's growing Red List of
imperiled
organisms. The survey was made public
Wednesday in
Washington.
INSET:
Plants
in Trouble
The
United States leads the world in the number of plant species
identified
as threatened by extinction. Here are
the countries with
the
largest number of threatened species, along with the percentage of
the
nation's plants that are in jeopardy.
Percent
Imperiled of Total
Species Species
United
States 4,669
29.0 %
Australia 2,245
14.4
South
Africa 2,215
9.5
Turkey 1,876
21.7
Mexico 1,593
6.1
Brazil 1,358
2.4
Panama 1,302
13.1
India 1,236
7.7
Spain 985
19.5
Peru 906 5.0
Cuba 888 13.6
Ecuador 824
4.3
Jamaica 744
22.5
Colombia 712
1.4
Japan 707
12.7
Source:
The World Conservation Union
END
INSET
Among
the plants most at risk, the survey found, are 14 percent of
rose
species, 32 percent of lilies, 32 percent of irises, 14 percent
of
cherry species and 29 percent of palms.
Coniferous trees as a
group,
and many species found in island nations, were also judged
especially
vulnerable.
While
endangered mammals and birds have commanded more public
attention,
it is plants, scientists say, that are more fundamental to
nature's
functioning. They undergird most of the rest of life,
includinhuman
life, by converting sunlight into food. They provide the
raw
material for many medicines and the genetic stock from which
agricultural
strains of plants are developed. And they constitute the
very
warp and woof of the natural landscape, the framework within
which
everything else happens.
The
census of imperiled plants should be taken not as an exact measure
of the
situation, leaders of the survey said, but rather as a first,
rough
approximation.
And
some acknowledged that the majority of species were "secure and
widespread,"
in the words of Dr. Bruce Stein, a botanist who is a
senior
scientist with the Nature Conservancy, one of nine scientific
and
conservation organizations that participated in drawing up the
list.
Furthermore, Stein said, some plants were placed on the list
simply
because they are rare, not because their numbers are declining
or
their habitat is threatened.
Nevertheless,
of the world's 270,000 known species of plants, the 12.5
percent
found to be at risk is a huge proportion, said David Brackett
of
Ottawa, chairman of the World Conservation Union's Species Survival
Commission.
Moreover, he said, the figure is probably an
underestimate,
since data from most places in the world -- including
some
species-rich tropical nations where the countryside is being
rapidly
cleared -- are fragmentary.
The
list of imperiled plants fills more than 750 pages of a large red-
bound
book. Nine of every ten plants on the list are found in only one
country,
making them especially vulnerable to national or local
economic
and social conditions. Many species are found only on a few
islands,
and countries like Mauritius, the Seychelles and Jamaica
consequently
have disproportionately high numbers of threatened
plants.
Scientists
generally cite two main reasons why plants become
endangered:
destruction of large swatches of wild countryside by
agriculture,
logging or development, and invasions of plants from one
part of
the world that run riot and crowd out native species in
another
part.
The new
listing of endangered plants is one more piece of evidence
that
"a whole chunk of creation is at risk," said Dr. Stuart Pimm, an
ecologist
at the University of Tennessee, who was not involved in
producing
Wednesday's report. While 1 plant in 8 might not seem like
much,
he said, "that's what's threatened now, as a consequence of what
we've
done so far; but all the evidence is that the destruction is
continuing
at an accelerating pace."
The
United States' situation looks comparatively grim, said Stein,
because
plants are probably better surveyed here than elsewhere. With
4,669
species judged to be threatened to one degree or another, the
United
States ranked first, by far, among the nations of the world in
total
number of plants at risk. That is 29 percent of the country's
16,108
plant species.
"I
don't believe the U.S. is worse off than other countries," said
Stein.
"If anything, I think the U.S. has taken a more active interest
in
plant conservation."
Stein's
group, the Nature Conservancy, maintains what is widely
regarded
as one of North America's most comprehensive databases on
endangered
plants. Other major American participants in drawing up the
Red
List were the New York Botanical Garden and the Smithsonian
Institution's
National Museum of Natural History.
The
conservation union, also called the International Union for the
Conservation
of Nature, or IUCN, is based in Gland, Switzerland. Many
governments
and scientific organizations are among its members. Since
1960,
it has been maintaining and adding to its Red List of threatened
species.
The list has no official effect but is widely regarded as an
influential
guide for conservation policy makers.
Two
years ago, the union placed nearly a quarter of all known mammal
species
and 11 percent of birds on the list. It also added a number of
marine
species for the first time.
The Red
List establishes five categories of organisms: species not
seen in
the wild in 50 years and presumed extinct; species suspected
of
having recently become extinct; endangered species, those likely to
become
extinct if the causes of endangerment continue; vulnerable
species,
those likely to become endangered if the causes continue; and
rare
species, those with small worldwide populations not yet
endangered
or vulnerable. Of the total number of plants on the Red
List,
43 percent are classified as rare, 24 percent as vulnerable and
20
percent as endangered.
These
categories are different from those established under the United
States'
Endangered Species Act, and cannot be compared with them. The
American
categories, in descending order of seriousness, are called
endangered
and threatened.
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