Study Finds Twelve Percent of Plant Species may Disappear
4/8/98
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Study Finds Twelve Percent of Plant Species may Disappear
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 4/8/98
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The first international survey of plant diversity has
found that at least one out of every eight known plant species is threatened
with extinction or nearly extinct, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
The 862-page report by the World Conservation Union, the result of a 20-year
joint effort among 16 organizations, showed that habitat destruction and
introduction of nonnative species have caused about 34,000 species to become
so rare they could easily disappear, the Post said.
That amounts to 12.5 percent of the 270,000 fern, conifer and flowering species
known worldwide, the newspaper said, citing the report to be made public later
Wednesday. Of the imperiled species, 91 percent exist in no more than one
country.
Those statistics, the report was quoted as saying, ``are just the tip of the
iceberg'' because so little is known about many areas, and ``as more
information becomes available, the situation will be shown to be even worse.''