132 ONE IN 10 TREE SPECIES FACING EXTINCTION, REPORT WARNS

Geneva, Wednesday, The Age (article), 27/8/98

Ten per cent of the world's known tree species faced extinction due to a battery of threats, including forest fires and clearing for human settlements, ecological organisations said today. The warning was contained in a three-year study by the World Wide Fund for Nature and two other organisations, which publishes a list of trees at risk.

The 650-page document was launched in Geneva at a two-day of forum on forests in which governments from around the world were meeting to discuss how to tackle the continuing deforestation crisis. The report said more than 8750 of the 80,000 to 100,000 tree species were threatened with extinction.

Some 77 tree species have disappeared and almost 1000 others are "critically endangered", say the report's authors. The report says the biggest dangers are felling for timber and wood fuel, agriculture, expansion of human settlements and uncontrolled forest fires.