Threatened biodiversity hotspots
Name(s):
Endangered biological diversity hot-spot
Relict islands of high biodiversity
Isolated Holocene refugia
Nature
The term 'hotspot' refers to areas where high levels of species richness, endemism as well as threat coincide. There are 25 places that together contain more than 60 percent of terrestrial plant and animal species on just 1.4 percent of Earth's land surface.
Incidence
The Caribbean, the Philippines and Madagascar rank the highest priority of hotspots, based on total plant and vertebrate diversity and endemism. Regions with high levels of endangered species, include Brazil's Cerrado, Central Chile, the Mountains of South-Central China, western Ecuador and the Caucasus. The 'hot spots' (where the disappearance of already-threatened moist tropical forest would cause the greatest losses of biodiversity) include the remaining forests in Philippines, peninsular Malaysia, northwestern Borneo, the eastern Himalayas, the Western Ghats in India, southeastern Sri Lanka and New Caledonia.
The Cape Floral Kingdom in South Africa has the highest recorded species diversity for any similar sized temperate or tropical region in the world. The Cape Floral Kingdom is the world's 'hottest hotspot' of global conservation concern due to the risks and threats currently facing the area. South Africa is the only country on Earth to have within its national confines such an entire plant kingdom - one of just six in the world.
Claim
Too many contributions toward biodiversity have been frittered away, spent on the programmes that do not have much protection effect.
Broader
Reference(s)
Type
(F) Fuzzy exceptional problems