Throughout the world biodiversity is under threat. And the most threatened and important biodiverse areas have been identified as ‘Biodiversity Hotspots’.
In order to be a ‘Biodiversity Hotspot’, an area should contain a large number of endemic species—meaning, species found ONLY THERE. And it should have lost the majority of its primary vegetation.
It’s a pretty sad situation in which we humans have found ourselves. Globally, we are sitting at the edge of mass extinctions. We are loosing species at a rate 1,000-10,000 times the natural extinction rate. The bad news statistics can go on and on, but the good news is that we can do something about this!
I believe the private sector has an important role to play in this, we can not just sit back and let the environmental agencies take care of it. Stay tuned on my posts for more on this front..
But for now, let’s just appreciate where these hotspots are:
The first 25 proposed were in a scientific paper: Myers, N., et al. (2000) “Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities.” Nature 403:853–858:
1. The Tropical Andes
2. Mesoamerica
3. The Caribbean Islands
4. The Atlantic Forest
5. Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena
6. The Cerrado
7. Chilean Winter Rainfall-Valdivian Forests
8. The California Floristic Province
9. Madagascar and the Indian Ocean Islands
10. The Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa
11. The Guinean Forests of West Africa
12. The Cape Floristic Region
13. The Succulent Karoo
14. The Mediterranean Basin
15. The Caucasus
16. Sundaland
17. Wallacea
18. The Philippines
19. Indo-Burma
20. The Mountains of Southwest China
21. Western Ghats and Sri Lanka
22. Southwest Australia
23. New Caledonia
24. New Zealand
25. Polynesia and Micronesia
An additional eleven hotspots (blue) have since been added:
26. The Madrean Pine-Oak Woodlands
27. Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany
28. The Eastern Afromontane
29. The Horn of Africa
30. The Irano-Anatolian
31. The Mountains of Central Asia
32. Eastern Himalaya
33. Japan
34. East Melanesian Islands
35. The Forests of East Australia
36. North American Coastal Plain
I bet many of you didn’t even know you were sitting right in the middle of such an important ecosystem!