Study Says Nearly A Quarter Of Malaysia’s Trees Would Be Gone In A Few Years
Malaysia is home to 1,616 endemic species of trees that can’t be found anywhere else.
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Despite being home to 5,422 species of trees, including 1,616 endemic species, there are around 1,295 (or 24%) threatened tree species in Malaysia, according to the Botanic Gardens Conservation International.
Their report – State of the World’s Trees Report – pointed out that globally, 30% or 17,500 of the tree species are currently at risk of extinction due to overlogging, agriculture, logging, and livestock farming.
It’s revealed in the report that that 1 in 5 tree species are directly used by humans for food, fuel, timber, medicines, horticulture, and more.
The countries with the most endemic trees are Brazil, Madagascar, Australia, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Colombia and the Philippines.
According to Encyclopedia.com, endemic species are plants and animals that exist only in one geographic region.
In terms of region, the Neotropics (Central and South America) has the most tree species with 23,631, followed by the other tropical regions: Indo-Malaya (tropical Asia – 13,739 species) and the Afrotropics (Africa south of the Sahara, including Madagascar – 9,237 species).
In for the money
It’s mentioned that some of the timber trees such as dipterocarps and ramin; and also other species of plants such as cinnamon and quercus (oaks) are some of the examples of flora which are being threatened.
The research said that the greatest threats facing trees include habitat loss from agriculture and grazing, followed by over-exploitation from logging and harvesting.
The data showed that 1 in 3 trees currently harvested for timber are threatened with extinction.
It’s also been pointed out that in Borneo, the expansion of palm oil plantations has been a major threat to the dipterocarpaceae species, one of the most threatened tree groups of trees on the planet.
These large tropical trees make up the majority of the lowland habitat on the island, and their decline has led to species such as the Bornean orangutan to become Critically Endangered.
Botanic Gardens Conservation International
Despite being a threat to the environment, logging is reported as a very lucrative business, with over US$3.5 billion (RM14.53 billion) of dipterocarp timber exported each year from Kalimantan (the Indonesian half of the Borneo island) alone.
The research also stated that annual timber exports from Borneo exceed those from Amazonia and Africa combined.
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