If the Lorax is still speaking for the trees, he's going to have a lot to say about the International Union for Conservation of Nature's first Global Tree Assessment. The report found that almost 35% of the world's tree species are at risk of extinction. More than 1,000 experts contributed to the study, which covered more than 47,000 of the world's estimated 58,000 tree species and found that at least 16,425 were at risk, AFP reports. "The number of threatened trees is more than double the number of all threatened birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians combined," the IUCN said. "Tree species are at risk of extinction in 192 countries around the world."
"The significance of the Global Tree Assessment cannot be overstated, given the importance of trees to ecosystems and people," said Eimear Nic Lughadha, senior research leader at London's Royal Botanic Gardens, which has been collecting seeds from trees across the world. The IUCN said many threatened tree species on its Red List are on islands, where they are at "particularly high risk due to deforestation for urban development and agriculture at all scales, as well as invasive species, pests, and diseases."
"We are currently in a biodiversity crisis," Steven Bachman, another conservation researcher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, tells the BBC. "Many species of trees all around the world are providing habitat for many other species of birds, mammals, insects, fungi," he says. "If we lose the trees we are losing many other species with them." The IUCN said "innovative approaches" are needed to protect trees in South America, which holds the greatest diversity of trees in the world. Lughadha notes that the report found that around 25% of trees in the region are threatened, below the global average, but many species there "have yet to be described for science and tree species new to science are more likely than not to be threatened with extinction." (More trees stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
