BBC Environment — A
list of the 800 most important sites for wild plants in central and
Eastern Europe has been published by the charity, Plantlife
International. Many of the sites contain endangered species yet a fifth
is without legal protection. Agriculture, forestry and tourism are the
main threats to “Europe’s last areas of wilderness,” says the report.
If they cannot be saved “we risk a spiritual impoverishment such as no
generation has known before”, it says. Hundreds of specialists from
academic institutions and non-governmental organisations identified the
best sites for wild plants, fungi and their habitat in seven countries.
They were Belarus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Romania,
Slovakia and Slovenia. The report also looked at the threats to each
internationally important site for wild plants (IPA). It found that:
poor forestry practices threaten 44% of IPAs, tourism threatens 38%,
and agricultural intensification (grazing, hay-making, arable)
threatens 29%. Other threats include development, urban and transport,
and invasive plant species. (06/02/05)
more…

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