Africa-Press – Rwanda. MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Thirty percent of the world’s nearly 60,000 tree species may go extinct in the wild, the London-based Botanic Gardens Conservation International found in a study published on 1 September.
“Through the Global Tree Assessment, intensive research has been undertaken over the past five years to compile extinction risk information on the 58,497 tree species worldwide. We now know that 30% of tree species are threatened with extinction, and at least 142 tree species are recorded as extinct in the wild,” the charity said.
“The highest proportion of threatened species is found in Tropical Africa, which includes Madagascar which is one of the countries with the highest level of threatened trees,” the report said, adding that the other two places with most threatened species were Mauritius and the British territory of Saint Helena.
With over two-thirds of tree species recorded in at least one protected area, and about a third of species found in botanical gardens or seed banks, the report calls for urgent actions to preserve biodiversity and facilitate the resources and expertise required.
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