This archive report was first published on 21 November 2019.
Published on November 21, 2019, a study by the journal Science Advances revealed that a third of Africa's tropical plant species are potentially threatened with extinction.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) maintains the authoritative 'Red List' of threatened species, but it is relatively complete only for mammals and birds. For plants, only 10 percent of the estimated 350,000 species have been assessed.
Researchers led by botanist Thomas Couvreur from the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development used a computer analysis of over 22,000 vascular plant species in tropical Africa. They relied on data from the Rainbio database maintained by the French Foundation for Biodiversity Research.
The study found that 32 percent of the species, or nearly 7,000, were classified as likely or potentially threatened based on population size or geographical distribution. The regions most at risk include Ethiopia, the centre of Tanzania, the southern Democratic Republic of Congo, and the forests of West Africa.
According to Couvreur, "the two approaches are complementary. There still needs to be an important international effort to evaluate all the plant species in Africa."
