Ten Most Threatened Forests

Conservational International has identified what it says are the world’s 10 most threatened forest hotspots, all of which have lost 90 percent or more of their original woodlands to human activity. Five of the endangered forests are in the Asia-Pacific region, three are in Africa, and one each are in North America and South America. Each remaining forest area still harbors at least 1,500 endemic plant species that would go extinct if the forests disappear. The forests, in order of the most threatened, include the woodlands of Indochina, New Zealand’s temperate rainforests, the tropical forests of Borneo and Sumatra, the Philippines’ rainforests, the Atlantic forest of Brazil, the forested mountains of China, the Mediterranean-type forests of California, the coastal forests of eastern Africa, the forests of Madagascar, and Africa’s eastern Afromontane forests, which stretch from the Horn of Africa to Zimbabwe. “Forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate to give room to pastures, agricultural land, mineral exploitation, and sprawling urban areas, but by doing so we are destroying our own capacity to survive,” said Olivier Langrand, Conservation International’s head of international policy.