Context: Recently, Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) has published a landmark State of the World’s Trees report. 

• The report, compiling work led by the Global Tree Assessment (GTA), is the culmination of five years of research to identify major gaps in tree conservation efforts.
• It is one of the first assessments of the world’s threatened trees. 

Key highlights of the report

• The world has 58,497 tree species.
• Neotropics (Central and South America) have the largest number of tree species with 23,631 tree species.
• Indo-Malaya is second with 13,739 species and Afrotropics have 9,237 species.
• Nearctic and Oceania have the lowest number of tree species.

142 of the world’s tree species have become extinct and 29.9% are threatened.

• Madagascar is one of the countries with the highest number of threatened trees.
• After Indo-Malaya and Oceania, the Afrotropics (Africa south of the Sahara, including Madagascar) have the highest proportion of threatened tree species.
• Palearctic and Nearctic (North America) realms mostly have tree species that are not threatened.
• 18 per cent or 469 of India’s 2603 tree species are threatened with extinction.
• India is home to 650 endemic tree species not found anywhere else.
• India is a part of Indo-Malaya (Tropical Asia) biogeographic realm.

Major threats faced by trees

• Agriculture (29%) > logging (27%) > livestock farming > residential and commercial development > fire and fire suppression > energy production and mining > wood and pulp plantations > invasive and other problematic species > climate change.

Ecosystem collapse

• The report also raised concerns that the destruction can cascade across ecosystems affecting communities of trees.
• The impacts of a changing climate and severe weather—listed as a direct threat to more than a thousand species—include shifting habitats, increasing storms and floods, as well as more fires, pests and disease.
• Tree species that have evolved over millions of years, adapting to changing climates, can no longer survive the onslaught of human threats.

Suggestion

• Despite nearly a third of tree species threatened with extinction, the report indicates hope for the future if conservation efforts continue and further action is taken. 

In the report, BGCI recommend five key actions for policymakers and experts in order to protect and bring back threatened species:

• Extend protected area coverage for threatened tree species that are currently not-well represented in protected areas
• Ensure that all globally threatened tree species, where possible, are conserved in botanic garden and seed bank collections 
• Increase availability of Government and corporate funding for threatened tree species
• Expand tree planting schemes, and ensure the targeted planting of threatened and native species
• Increase global collaboration to tackle tree extinction, by participating in international efforts such as the Global Conservation Consortia