The Red Book of endangered species. IUCN has made changes to the list, eastern gorilla on the verge of extinction – Virtual Poland

• In Honolulu held a congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature
 

 • eastern gorilla was considered a critically endangered species
 

 • Tibetan antelope Tibetan went to the category of ‘near threatened’
 

 • The Red Book has nearly 83 thousand. endangered species of plants and animals
 

The International Union for Conservation of Nature declared the eastern gorilla – the biggest monkey belonging to the family of hominids – a critically endangered species. From the category of “endangered” to “vulnerable” was postponed for the great panda, whose population grows. The world is only approx. 5 thousand. huge eastern gorillas, occurring only in the rain forests of central Africa, mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the victims of poachers. Their population has dropped by 70 percent. Over the past 20 years. This species “is on the verge of extinction” – recognized representatives of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) gathered at a congress in Honolulu.

Currently, four of the six species of great apes are classified as “critically endangered” in the Red Book of endangered species maintained by IUCN. These are the eastern gorilla, western gorilla, orangutan orangutan and the Sumatran orangutan.
 

 - IUCN Red List shows that we contribute to the extinction of some of our closest relatives – said Director General of IUCN Inger Andersen.
 

“critically endangered” is the last category of threat before finding the total extinction of the species in the wild. Other hominid: chimpanzees and bonobos (pygmy) are in the category of “risk”, which also means that they can become extinct.
 

The good news is, however, moving the giant panda from the category of “risk” to the less dangerous categories of species “vulnerable”. This means that still threatened with extinction, but not in the near term. Progress was made possible thanks to a rigorous program of species conservation in China, based largely on increasing bamboo forests – the natural occurrence of these environmental awakening sympathy niedźwiedziowatych.
 

 IUCN estimates that the world live approx. 2060 panda. But you can be pretty quiet about their fate, because global warming could reduce the bamboo forest area by one-third within 80 years.
 

Even better news is the placement of Tibetan antelope Tibetan ibex living at an altitude of more than 3.7 thousand. m above sea level in the category of “near threatened ‘. This means that it is no longer in immediate danger of extinction.
 

The Red Book has nearly 83 thousand. plant and animal species. More than one-third of a different extent endangered, 68 extinct in our lifetime in the wild, and 855 – completely.