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TROPICAL RAINFORESTS: Disappearing Opportunities
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About this site
Providing tropical forest news, statistics, photos, and information, rainforests.mongabay.com is the world's most popular rainforest site. [more] |
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Endangered Plants
A 20 year joint study by 16 organizations found that at least 34,000 of the world's 270,000 fern, conifer, and
flowering plant species, or about one in eight, is endangered with extinction. Scientists warn that the number
of threatened species is probably considerably higher since many the flora of many developing countries is poorly
catalogued. In general, the more detailed a country's plant inventory, the higher its proportion of endangered
species. For example, the US, with one of the best studied biotas, had 29% of its 16,000 plant species considered
endangered. This loss of variability among agricultural plant species has significant implications for agriculture
worldwide.
Continued: Extinction
Unless otherwise specified, this article was written by Rhett A. Butler [Bibliographic citation for this page]
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Recent news
Amazon deforestation rate falls to lowest on record
(8/10/2007) Deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon for the previous year were the lowest on record, according to preliminary figures released by INPE, Brazil's National Institute of Space Research.
Lowland rainforest less diverse than previously thought
(8/9/2007) While rainforests are the world's libraries of biodiversity, species richness may be more evenly distributed in some forests than in others, reports an extensive new study by an international team of entomologists and botanists. The work, published in the current issue of the journal Nature, has important implications for forest management and conservation strategies.
Experts: parks effectively protect rainforest in Peru
(8/9/2007) High-resolution satellite monitoring of the Amazon rainforest in Peru shows that land-use and conservation policies have had a measurable impact on deforestation rates. The research is published in the August 9, 2007, on-line edition of Science Express.
More rainforest news
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