The most threatened forests around the world – Part 2

This article is a continuation of ‘The most threatened forests around the world – Part 1’.

Mountainous archipelago once dominated by temperate rainforests, New Zealand is a land of diverse landscapes, home to extraordinary levels of endemic species, including its most famous representative, the kiwi. None of its mammals, amphibians and reptiles
are found elsewhere in the world. Interestingly, the endemic land mammals are species of bats.

Currently, invasive species represent the greatest threat to the flora and fauna of the islands of New Zealand.

When Europeans sailed in New Zealand in early nineteenth century, they brought 34 species of exotic mammals (including opossums, rabbits, cats, goats, stoats and ferrets) and hundreds of species of invasive plants. Along with the impact of hunting (and habitat
destruction), the last 200 years have witnessed the extinction of birds, invertebrates, plants, a species of bat endemic and fish.

Some other species survive only in very small populations on offshore islands. Habitat destruction, through deforestation and drainage of wetlands, is also a problem. This place retains only 5% of their original habitat

The probe covers the eastern part of the archipelago Indonesia and Malaysia shared a set of about 17,000 islands equatorial dominated by two of the largest islands in the world: Borneo and Sumatra.

 Its spectacular flora and fauna are succumbing to the explosive growth of the forestry industry and the international animal trade that requires species of tigers, monkeys and turtles for food and medicine in other countries.

The populations of orangutans, found only in these forests, they experience a dramatic decline. Some of the last refuges of two rhino species in Southeast Asia are also on the islands of Java and Sumatra. Like many tropical areas, forests are cleared for
commercial use.

The production of rubber, palm oil and pulp are three of the most destructive forces facing biodiversity in the probe. In Sumatra, illegal logging and unsustainable forest products from, whether timber or not, is expanded by the high demand from China, North
America and Japan. Currently, only about 7% of the original extent of forest preserved in almost untouched condition.

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Posted by Fouad Ashraf on Apr 20 2012. Filed under World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry