Subject: endangered plants study
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Plant Survey Reveals Depth of Species Extinction Crisis
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source : http://forests.org/t.se/~w-25860/icibs/prog-reg.htm
4/20/98
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY
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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RELAYED 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.
Imperilled Percent
Species of Total
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
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.