It may surprise you to know that until today we didn’t understand how many species of trees there are on the planet. New newspaperGlobalTreeSearch – the primary complete global database of tree species and country distributions”, published today within the Journal of Sustainable Forestry, highlights the incontrovertible fact that greater than half of all tree species are present in only one country, and lots of are vulnerable to extinction. Of all of the countries on the planet, Brazil has probably the most tree species – 8,715 species, followed by Colombia (5,776) and Indonesia (5,142). Apart from the Arctic and Antarctica (which haven’t any trees), the region with the fewest tree species is the Nearctic region of North America, which has fewer than 1,400 species.
The Database includes over 375,500 records that took over two years to compile. Dr Paul Smith, Secretary General of BGCI, explains: “While it seems extraordinary that it took us until 2017 to publish the primary global, authoritative list of tree species, it’s price remembering that GlobalTreeSearch is a large scientific effort, discovering, collecting and describing tens of 1000’s of species plants. “It is a ‘great science’ encompassing the work of 1000’s of botanists over the centuries.”
The predominant reason BGCI took on the challenge of documenting the world’s tree diversity was to make the tool available to individuals who need to protect rare and endangered tree species. GlobalTreeSearch will form the premise of the Global Tree Assessment, an initiative to evaluate the conservation status of all tree species on the planet by 2020. This will enable the prioritization of tree species which are most in need of conservation motion, ensuring that no tree species are lost within the Always.
