No more lovely, dark and deep woods on Earth…!!

Trees, Trees

Home of the Bees

Home of the Seeds

Buds, flowers and Leaves

Home of Birds

A Chipmunk, a Bat

Trees make their own food

But never get fat..!!

          When we listened to this rhyme in our childhood, we imagined about different kind of trees. To some children, the image that came into their mind was of an Oak tree, a banyan tree to some, a sandal wood for others. Likewise, every children in the classroom imagined different kind of trees. In the future, when we teach our kids the same nursery rhyme, they may ask “What is a tree? How does it look like?”

         According to the world’s first global trees database compiled by London based Botanic Gardens conservation International (BGCI),we have more than 60,000 tree species on earth. But many of the species are currently under trouble.

        Thousands of trees are at risk of extinction. BCGI compiled a list of tree species around the world recently and discovered 9,600 types of trees were 

threatened by extinction.

     The scientists say that humans are wiping out at least 75% of the earth’s species. And our planet is now on the brink of sixth mass extinction.

      The Organization, whose members include hundreds of botanical institutions worldwide, said it pulled data from more than 500 published sources to create the online database Global Tree Search, the world’s first “global, authoritative list of tree species.”

      BGCI in collaboration with the International union for Conservation of nature identified 60,065 tree species currently living on earth. Of that number, more than half were found to only occur in a single country, which could suggest an increased vulnerability to threats, said the authors of the database.

     Deforestation and Global warming have put many of them in danger, including 300 species they said were critically endangered after discovering only 50 or fewer remaining. One particular species, the KaroniaGigas in Tanzania, was found to have only one population of trees remaining-comprised of just six trees. 

The scientists say that the tree list they have made is the first of its kind and it     

will be really useful in identifying the regions where the conservation efforts are needed mostly.

         Fifty eight percent of the tree species identified on the list were found in South America, including 8,715 species in Brazil alone.
In 2015, a report by the ecological Society of Australia said climate change was responsible for killing trees around the world, including in Western Australia where 25% of mature trees found across more than 17,200 acres of forest died due to heat waves between 2010 and 2011.

        The scientists who prepared the tree list says that deforestation, human activities and weather events are the major reasons causing extinction of trees.Compiling the database was a massive undertaking, said BGCI.

       “Although it seems extraordinary that it has taken us until 2017 to publish the first global, authoritative list of tree species, it is worth remembering that Global Tree Search represents a huge scientific effort encompassing the discovery, collection and 

describing of tens of thousands of plant species” said Paul Smith, BGCI’s Secretary General.

       “This is ‘big science’ involving the