[D66] New Global Report Warns Nearly 40% of Plants at Risk of Extinction

[R.O.]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/30/new-global-report-warns-nearly-40-plants-risk-extinction

Published on
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
by
Common Dreams
New Global Report Warns Nearly 40% of Plants at Risk of Extinction

"At a time of rapid biodiversity loss, we are failing to access the 
treasure chest of incredible diversity on offer and missing a huge 
opportunity for our generation."
by
Jessica Corbett, staff writer


Humanity's destruction of nature has made an estimated two in five plant 
species worldwide at risk of extinction, according to an assessment 
published Wednesday by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the United 
Kingdom.

"The data emerging from this year's report paint a picture of a world 
that has turned its back on the potential of plants and fungi to address 
fundamental global issues such as food security and climate change."
—Alexandre Antonelli, RBG Kew

The fourth annual report, entitled State of the World's Plants and Fungi 
(pdf), draws on the expertise of 210 researchers from 42 countries for 
what professor Alexandre Antonelli, director of science at RBG Kew, 
calls an "unparalleled collaborative effort" that aims to put the planet 
and all its inhabitants on a more sustainable path.

"Open your fridge, peek into your medicine cupboard, examine your living 
room, feel your clothes. For thousands of years, we have searched nature 
to satisfy our hunger, cure our diseases, build our houses, and make our 
lives more comfortable," Antonelli writes in the report's introduction.

"But our early exploration of useful traits in species relied on 
rudimentary tools, and Indigenous knowledge was lost as local traditions 
were downplayed and globalization emerged," he adds. "As a result, 
humanity is still a long way from utilizing the full potential of 
biodiversity, in particular plants and fungi, which play critical roles 
in ecosystems. Now, more than ever before, we need to explore the 
solutions they could provide to the global challenges we face."

The report comes on the heels of a United Nations assessment that the 
international community has failed to fulfill any of the biodiversity 
targets that were set a decade ago as well as the latest edition of 
World Wide Fund for Nature's flagship publication, which warned that 
"nature—our life-support system—is declining at a staggering rate." 
Specifically, WWF found "an average 68% decrease in population sizes of 
mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish between 1970 and 2016."

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