Endangered plant life

Endangered Plant Life WILLEM MEIJER, P h . D .

(Amsterdam)

Associate Professor, School of Biological Sciences, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506, USA

ABSTRA CT

disappeared or is on the way to disappearance through agricultural practices, the use of fertilizers on semiThis paper discusses ways and means of more effective natural or natural grasslands (prairies, barrens, blueaction, on an international scale, for the protection of endangered plant life, and shows how, in places where people grasslands, etc.), or that of herbicides on meadows and have become aware of possessing spectacular or unique in aquatic ecosystems. Moreover, ecological deserts examples of plant life, they have often added to amenities have been created in and around urban centres, around sacred places and created inviolate parts of the world's especially as regards epiphytic cryptogams (Algae, heritage. Good results for conservation of representative areas bryophytes, and lichens, growing on trees). have been reached locally through improved attitudes towards Plant species are most in danger of extinction rational land-use planning, great caution in the employment of herbicides and pesticides, recognition in forestry of the because of the disappearance of, or drastic changes in, need for a systems planning for natural areas, and awareness their habitats. In the forests of tropical Africa, that the great diversity of the green plant cover, of flowers Malaya, and North Borneo, intensive tree-felling has and trees, is among the most delightful features helping to been followed by killing of undergrowth by use of keep the Earth as a livable and beautiful environment. arboricides. In Vietnam, over 2¼ million hectares Plant protection can be a very good and profitable way to of forests have been severely affected with spraying of promote local tourism. herbicides for military purposes (Westing, 1972). In Kentucky, virtually nothing is left of the original prairie-like vegetation of the 'barrens' of western Kentucky, described by F. A. Michaux (1805). INTRODUCTION In the Mid-West of the USA, nature conservationists Plant life in the world is affected by population wage a final battle to preserve a prairie/national park. growth, unplanned land-use, and technological de- Prairies have become as rare as the original Indians velopments. A view from an airplane flying over and Bison. Enormous acreages have been sacrificed to Great Britain, the greater portion of western Europe, agricultural development. In the southern USA, a lot the corn-farm belt of the USA, and parts of India, of land that was formerly taken up by plantations of reveals that, in most of the densely-populated areas tobacco or cotton would now be far more profitable if of the world, there is little or no natural vegetation it had been left under forest. In Central America and left---especially in those places where the land is flat Brazil, large stretches of the tropical forests are now and fertile. Over large stretches of mountainous and coming under the axe (Croat, 1972). Great devastation hilly areas in Latin America, Africa, Indo-China, of tropical lowland forests is also going on in southSumatra, and Borneo, shifting cultivation, and slash- east Asia (Steenis, 1971 ; Meijer, 1973). There are a number of unique plant types in the and-burn farming by hill tribes, have caused the disappearance of primary forests. Damage to vegeta- world which are on the brink of extinction, or are so tion and flora has been greatest in areas where there extremely limited in range that they could easily be has been a lack of awareness of the scientific and 'wiped out' by a single catastrophe. They include some aesthetic values of the native flora, and in some beautiful palms, such as the 'Double Coconut' or regions plant species and their habitats have gone for Coco-de-mer of the Seychelles (Lodoicea maldivica, ever. In countries such as The Netherlands and Japan cf. Polunin, 1968), the Talipot Palm (Corypha elata, there are, fortunately, specific areas left which form see Fig. 1), and the Orania Palm (Fig. 2), likewise of more or less representative refugia for the native flora. North Borneo, Johannis teysmannia in Sarawak and However, in parts of western Europe and North Malaya, and a local Livistona in West Sumatra. The America, a great part of the semi-natural flora has largest flower in the world, Rafflesia arnoldii (Fig. 3) 163 Biological Conservation, Vol. 5, No. 3, July 1973--~ Applied Science Publishers Ltd, England, 1973--Printed in Great Britain

164

Biological Conservation

genus Amorphophallus (Figs. 4 and 5), and international concern should be aroused for such spectacular plants and their habitats (Corner, 1968). The flora of Hawaii has been very severely affected by human interference. Free-enterprise land developments, with the use of dollars and bulldozers, are the most destructive factors here and in other parts of the USA, as well as in countries which follow the same principles--for example, the Philippines, and many Latin American countries. In Russia, China, and

Fig. 1.

Talipot Palm (Corypha elata) near Kudat, Sabah, Malaysia. Photo: Dr Willem Meijer.

and related species, are going to disappear unless more nature reserves are created for such remarkable plants in Sumatra, Borneo, Java, and the Philippines. Protection is also needed for various giant aroids of the

Fig. 3. A tourist in West Sumatra admiring a specimen of Rafflesia arnoldii, the worM's largest flower. Photo: Dr Willem Meijer.

India, population pressures and the need to feed people better may have overshadowed the desire to save the local flora. In Sri Lanka (Ceylon), thanks to an active wildlife society,* relatively far more has been saved than in India (Meijer, 1972). In Japan, wild areas are often kept around temples as sacred forests and as amenities for tourism. In West Java, the only lowland forests left are also sacred areas. However, nothing is sacred for 'westernized' peoples!

Fig. 2.

Orania Palm near Bandau, Kudat Peninsula, Sabah, Malaysia. Photo: Dr Willem Meijer.

* This society has had various names, apparently starting with that of 'Game Protection Society' (1894), renamed 'Game and Fauna Protection Society' (1930), and latterly 'The Wildlife and Nature Protection Society of Ceylon, (1971), although the last word in this appellation will presumably have to be replaced by 'Sri Lanka'--cf. the paper by Professor Hilary Crusz on pp. 199-208 of the present issue--Ed.

Meijer : Endangered Plant Life

165

extinction should include the following five main categories: 1. Inventory of Endangered Vegetation Types and Species In the USA, the prairies, coastal and riverine wetlands, and areas with strip-mining or clear-felling of trees, are the most endangered. A file on some 20,000 endangered species of higher plants and short 'monographs' on them has been started by Dr Ronald Melville (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, England) and D r F. R a y m o n d Fosberg (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.). This has already resulted in an active start to Volume 5 of the Red Data Book,* which

Fig. 4. Amorphophallus decus-sylvae, Mount Sago, West Sumatra. This was the largest specimen observed, being 4"36 m in height. Photo: Dr Willem Meijer. In m a n y parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, relict areas with remnants of the flora are left, thanks to lack of enterprise by people to cultivate their lands up to the last square metre. N o r t h American and European farmers are far more drastic cultivators. There is no more dreary landscape possible than the square plots, without a bush or tree, to be found in central Illinois and North and South Dakota, or the old-fashioned 'rational' treeless farms in old Dutch polders such as Haarlemmermeer.

MEASURES TOWARD SOLUTION

Actual measures to be taken to save plant life from

Fig. 5. Amorphophallus decus-sylvae, Mount Sago, West Sumatra. Spathe 60 cm long, spadix 90 cm long, stalk 1"5 m long. Photo: Dr Willem Meijer. * Concerning this important compilation which so far is concerned only with angiosperms, Dr Melville writes (in litt. 21 April 1972) that the Red Data Book ' . . . is far more than [a list of endangered species] as the project is to provide short monographs of all of the endangered species. This has proved to be a tremendous task as our present estimate is that about 20,000 species will have to be included. The preparation of annotated lists of endemics is therefore an interim measure in order to provide the minimum of information necessary for conservation action. Eventually I hope we shall be able to publish more detailed monographs on all the species.'--Ed.

166

Biological Conservation

is being published in loose-leaf form by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (Melville, 1970a, 1970b, 1971). The United Nations should make member countries pledge to assist in protection of endangered vegetation types and unique plant types. A number of areas and species should be included in books to be published by UNESCO. The best way to collect information of this nature is to organize regional conferences in which influential research workers, conservationists, and interested government officials, take part. The conferences 'force' them to collect the needed information, give them a deadline, and make the governments aware that something has to be done in this field.

2. Actual Protection of Habitats In all countries of the world it should be an adopted government policy that representative areas of all natural and seminatural vegetation types have to be protected: thus each country should have what Fisher (1969) calls a 'park and natural area systems planning project'. In many cases such areas have still to be identified. They might be combined with 'baseline' areas for such an earth-watch programme as is hopefully to be organized by the UN Secretariat for the Environment. Moreover, smaller 'nature monuments' for large trees, isolated relict populations of palms, of special parasitic plants, or of otherwise unique plants, have to be maintained and publicized. Sometimes such places can become great tourist attractions, as in the case of a 60-ft (18.3-m) girth Baobab tree in Ceylon, a place with flowering Rafflesia not far from a road in West Sumatra (Fig. 6), the last native groves of Cedars of Lebanon, the stands of a Livistona palm on a rock cliff in West Sumatra, and the Muir Woods with Sequoia near San Francisco, California. In South Africa the national botanic gardens play an active role in protection of a wide range of plant habitats (Rycroft, 1972). In other countries, wildlife and nature conservation societies, or even forest services, can do the job, provided they have enthusiastic and active nature conservationists working on a comprehensive programme of reserves. Special responsibilities should be given to national parks, state parks, state nature conservation services, and forest services, to start or enlarge programmes of 'Virgin Jungle Reserves'--such as those established in former British colonies in Africa and Malaysia, and those in North America. These reserves should be under professional botanical-ecological management in order to give them adequate protection. Botanists should be asked to write books and pamphlets on native flora and vegetation--for public use, in order to

Fig. 6. A rare plant developed into a tourist attraction: Rafflesia sign on road near Sawahlunto, West Sumatra. Photo: Dr Willem Meijer. educate the people on the plant life of local areas (Corner, 1968). The new series, Plant Life in the Netherlands, produced by the Dutch Society for Nature Monuments (Herengracht, Amsterdam), is an excellent example of what is needed. Governments belonging to the United Nations should adopt, as a matter of national policy to stimulate work on surveys of forest types, the setting aside of nature reserves in these forest types, as well as actual protection of the sites involved. National pride in the local heritage should be developed, and, with wise management, tourism--both local and international--can profit from this, even in denselypopulated countries. A classic example is overpopulated Ceylon--a very beautiful island nation with a growing potential for world tourism (Meijer, 1972). A good model for a local study is given by Vos (1969) for East Africa.

3. 'War' Against Herbicides, Pesticides, and A rboricides This 'war' can only be won with sounder ecological investigations and scientific studies of methods of organic gardening, biological control of weeds and insects, and sounder systems of tree harvesting, than exist at present. A survey of the deleterious effects of

167

Meijer : Endangered Plant Life herbicides and arboricides on local floras could be very revealing. 4. 'War' Against Shifting Cultivation Governments should be stimulated by good land-use studies to concentrate agriculture on the most productive land--often flat land with permanent irrigated agriculture. 5. 'War' Against Greediness of Agricultural-Industrial Forces, Lack o f Aesthetic Appreciation, and the Struggle for a Better, More Beautiful World to Live In This includes greater powers of governments for rational land-use planning, more parks for the people in and around cities, better horticulture, more national parks and state parks, many more Virgin Jungle Reserves, a national seashore-swampland park in the eastern USA, a Prairie National Park, a Great National Recreation Area in the Appalachians, and many similar projects in other countries. Governments should learn to deal with land-use problems in a rational non-political way. Protection of our planet Earth, its flora and vegetation, goes far beyond political ideas. In the writer's opinion, private property and private enterprise will have to be subordinated to the common .functioning o f our planet if it is to retain its amenities for life and the infinite beauty which we have been far too prone to take for granted.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author is grateful to Dr Ronald Melville (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew), to Dr F. Raymond Fosberg (Smithsonian Institution), and to Dr Howard S. Irwin (Director of the New York Botanical Gardens), for helpful suggestions during the preparation of this paper.

References

CORNER,E. J. H. (1968). Conservation--future prospects. Biological Conservation, 1(1), pp. 21-6. CROAT, Thomas B. (1972). The role of overpopulation and agricultural methods in the destruction of tropical ecosystems. BioScienee, 22, pp. 465-7. de Vos, Antoon. See Vos, Antoon de. FISHER,Joseph L. (1969). New perspectives on conservation" Biological Conservation, 1(2), pp. 111-6. MEDEa, Willem (1972). Nature conservation in Ceylon. Loris, 12, pp. 227-31. MEIJER, Willem (1973). Devastation and regeneration of lowland dipterocarp forests in south-east Asia. Bio. Science (in press). MELVILLE, Ronald (1970a). Red Data Book, Volume 5-Angiospermae. IUCN Survival Service Commission, 1110 Morges, Switzerland (including Annotated List of the Endemic Flowering Plants in the Seychelles, by R. Melville & C. Jeffrey, 7 pp.). Loose-leaf compilation. MELVILLE,Ronald (1970b). Plant conservation and the Red Book. Biological Conservation, 2(3), pp. 185-8. MELVILLE, Ronald (1971). Endangered angiosperms and conservation in Australia. Bull. Jard. Bot. Belg., 41, pp. 145-52. MICHAUX,F. A. (1805). Travels to the West of the Allegheny Mountains in the States of Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. (Repr. in Thwaites, R. G., Early Western Travels 1748-1846, Vol. III, 1904.) POLUNIN, Nicholas (1968). Seychelles biological sanctuaries? Biological Conservation, 1(l), pp. 93-4. RYCROFT, H. Brian (1972). Plants and gardens of South Africa: Centennial Lecture, Arnold Arboretum. Arnoldia, 32, pp. 220-5. STEENIS, C. G. G. J. van (1971). Plant conservation in Malaysia. Bull. Jard. Bot. Nat. Belg., 41, pp. 189-202. Vos, Antoon de (1969). The need for nature reserves in East Africa. Biological Conservation, 1(2), pp. 130-4, map. WESTING, Arthur H. (1972). Herbicides in war: current status and future doubt. Biological Conservation, 4(5), pp. 232-7, illustr.

IUCN's New President Following the six years' rule of Mr Harold Jefferson Coolidge, of Washington, D.C., the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, at its l lth (usually triennial) General Assembly, held recently at Banff, Alberta, elected Professor Donald J. Kuenen, of The Netherlands, as its new President. Professor Kuenen is a former Vice-President of IUCN, having been elected at the 9th General Assembly at Lucerne, Switzerland, in 1966. He has also served as a Member, Vice-Chairman, and, latterly, Chairman, of the I U C N Commission on

Ecology. He continues as a much-respected Consulting Editor of Biological Conservation, and we wish him all success in this important new assignment of presiding over I U C N - - w h i c h we fear may prove exacting, as it may not be easy to guide the Union back to a sound financial footing. Yet for such tasks as can be foreseen, his democratic wisdom and experience should prove valuable: he is Director-General of The Netherlands Research Institute for Nature Management and has long served the ancient University of Leiden as Professor of Zoology, Dean, and Rector.--Ed.