Daily US Times: According to a new assessment, at least 30% of the world’s tree species face extinction in the wild.
They range from well-known magnolia and oak trees to tropical timber trees.
Experts say 17,500 tree species are at risk of extinction – twice the number of threatened mammals, amphibians, birds and reptiles combined.
Amid threats such as deforestation, logging and climate change, conservation groups are calling for urgent protection efforts.
Dr Malin Rivers of the charity Botanic Gardens Conservation International in Kew, London, said: “We have nearly 60,000 tree species on the planet, and for the first time we now know which of these species are in need of conservation action, what are the greatest threats to them and where they are.”
Sara Oldfield, co-chair of the Global Tree Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature said that for a healthy world, we need tree species diversity.
“Each tree species has a unique ecological role to play,” she said. “With 30% of the world’s tree species threatened with extinction, we need to urgently scale-up conservation action.”
The report found that at least thirty percent of the 60,000 known tree species face extinction.
At least142 species have already vanished from the wild, according to the report, State of the World’s Trees, while 442 are on the very edge of extinction, with fewer than 50 individual trees remaining.
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