Almost a third of the world’s tree species are at risk of extinction, while hundreds are on the brink of being wiped out, according to a new report.
The landmark study, published by Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) on Wednesday, said some 17,500 tree species – or 30 percent of the total – are at risk of extinction, while 440 species have fewer than 50 specimens left in the wild.
Overall the number of threatened tree species is double the number of threatened mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles combined…
Trees help support the natural ecosystem and are considered vital for combating global warming and climate change. The extinction of a single tree species could prompt the loss of many others.
I wonder what would happen if scientists discovered that, watching television actually sterilized that portion of men’s brains that stimulates acts of sexual pleasure – thereby endangering the human species. Think we’d stop watching baseball or sitcoms? Monty Python reruns?
Eideard 
“I mean, if you’ve looked at a hundred thousand acres or so of trees — you know, a tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?” Ronald Reagan, candidate for Governor of California, while speaking before the Western Wood Products Association in San Francisco on March 12, 1966
“Vertebrates on the brink as indicators of biological annihilation and the sixth mass extinction” The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), June 1, 2020. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/24/13596
“The ongoing sixth mass extinction may be the most serious environmental threat to the persistence of civilization, because it is irreversible. Thousands of populations of critically endangered vertebrate animal species have been lost in a century, indicating that the sixth mass extinction is human caused and accelerating. The acceleration of the extinction crisis is certain because of the still fast growth in human numbers and consumption rates. In addition, species are links in ecosystems, and, as they fall out, the species they interact with are likely to go also. In the regions where disappearing species are concentrated, regional biodiversity collapses are likely occurring. Our results reemphasize the extreme urgency of taking massive global actions to save humanity’s crucial life-support systems.”
Of the 138,374 species assessed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for its survival watchlist more than 38,000 are now at risk of extinction, as the destructive impact of human activity on our planet deepens.
An update of the ‘Red List of Threatened Species’ was released Saturday morning.
Efforts to halt extensive declines in numbers and diversity of animals and plants have largely failed.
In 2019 the UN’s biodiversity experts warned that more than a million species are on the brink of extinction – raising the specter that the planet is on the verge of its sixth mass extinction event in 500 million years. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/09/04/red-list-threatened-species-grim-tally-those-facing-extinction