One in Eight of World's Vascular Plant Species Under Extinction Threat
6/29/98
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Title: One in Eight of World's Vascular Plant Species Under Extinction Threat
Source: The Worldwatch Institute via The Los Angeles Times Syndicate
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 6/29/98
Byline: Ashley Mattoon
At least one in eight of the world's known vascular plant species is under
threat of
extinction, according to the World Conservation Union's new 800-page "1997 IUCN
Red List
of Threatened Plants."
The report, released on April 8, is the first-ever global assessment of vascular
plants,
which include ferns, conifers and flowering plants (but exclude mosses, lichens,
algae or
fungi). Of the species assessed, nearly 34,000 -- 12.5 percent of the 270,000
known
vascular plant species in the world -- are under threat of extinction. The
report is
based on two decades of research and collaboration among scientists,
conservation
organizations, botanical gardens and museums around the world.
While the reasons behind the decline of plant species can be complex and varied,
loss of
habitat and the introduction of non-native species are the primary threats. For
example,
heavy logging of forests in central Chile has reduced the distribution of the
coral plant
(Berberidopsis corallina) to just a few small groves in the forest. And on the
island of
Mauritius, the introduction of both the strawberry guava plant and monkeys has
brought
the small tree, Elaeocarpus bojeri, (a species so rare, it has not been given a
common
name) quite literally to the brink of extinction as the few specimens that
remain cling
to the side of a hillside.
Due to insufficient data from some regions, the estimated number of threatened
plant
species is highly conservative and may well represent just the tip of the
iceberg, the
report notes. Countries such as Australia, South Africa and the United States,
for
example, have comprehensive assessments of the conservation status of their
plant
species. However, in most of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and South America, the
data are
more fragmentary and often very incomplete. When these regions are more fully
studied,
the report states, they "will undoubtedly be found to harbor many more
threatened plants
than are documented in this edition of the `Red List.'"
Even if incomplete, however, a list this large constitutes an alarming picture.
Together
with the IUCN's earlier assessments of animal species, which found that 11
percent of the
world's bird species and 25 percent of its mammals are threatened, it is starkly
clear
that the global loss of biodiversity is one of the most significant issues of
our time.
The world is now losing an unprecedented number of species, and losing them at a
much
faster rate than they are being replaced. Species that evolved over thousands of
centuries are now being lost virtually hour by hour.
The good news, says Bruce Stein, a botanist with The Nature Conservancy, is that
because
plants are less mobile and may not have the same space requirements as birds or
mammals,
they are in some ways easier to protect than other organisms. "It is just a
matter of
getting the commitment and resources to protect them," says Stein.
Copyright 1998, The Worldwatch Institute
Distributed by The Los Angeles Times Syndicate, All Rights Reserved