Recent research shows that increasing shortages in honeybees threaten pollination of crops in Europe. Although according to a study covering 41 European countries the overall number of honeybee stocks has increased by 7 per cent between 2005 and 2010 (to an estimated 13.4 million colonies with 7 billion honeybees), 15 countries have also experienced declines ranging from 4 per cent in Slovenia to 47 per cent in Switzerland. At the same time have changes in agricultural practices led to considerable changes in the need for pollination. Increases in pollinated crop areas are contributed to the growth of areas for producing biofuel crops (oilseed rape, sunflower and soybean), as have the use of pesticides led to a decline in the number of bees.
Tag Archives: wildlife
Species at Risk
Trying to get a picture of where and how many species globally are endangered or even at risk of extinction is a difficult undertaking. For 50 years the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) publishes the red list of threatened species. The list is a “comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of animal, fungi and plant species and their links to livelihoods”. It contains over 77,000 species of which according to the most recent report more than 22,000 are at risk of extinction. IUCN considers species at risk when they are “critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable.”
Mapped here is data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of threatened species including endangered and vulnerable species. The main cartogram shows countries resized according to all animal and plant species assessed as being at risk of local extinction. The two smaller cartograms highlight that conservation efforts have very different spatial degrees of severity, which also partly reflects the different geographical distribution of species.
