VietNamNet Bridge – Four more Vietnamese animals have been added to the 4th IUCN’s Red List (International Union for Conservation of Nature), which was announced yesterday afternoon at the first meeting of the 10-day 4th World Conservation Congress.

Lophura hatinhensis

The most noteworthy point of the Red List, which is released every four years, is the warning about the threat of extinction of nearly ¼ of known animals.

The report, released late yesterday at the Barcelona International Conference Centre, said that at least 76 animal species have become extinct since 1500, while 1,141 of 5,487 known species are facing extinction.

Despite efforts by governments throughout the world, only 5% of species in danger of becoming extinct have seen improvements in their situations.

Hundreds of animal species could disappear within the span of one human’s life because of humankind’s activities, said Julia Marton Lefevre, General Director of IUCN, at the congress’ opening session.

Preservers said that the actual situation of animal extinction may be even worse as databases are still lacking to give exact assessments about a lot of species.

Jan Schipper from CI, an international conservation institution, said that the actual rate of animals in danger of becoming extinct could be as high as 36%.

At the congress, Vu Van Trieu, IUCN Chief Representative in Vietnam, gave international participants and journalists a DVD which shows the situation of animal decreases in Vietnam. The disk suggests that things are even worse than described in the IUCN’s Red List.

According to the Vietnam Red Book released in July 2008, Vietnam now has over 100 species listed as ‘endangered’. Meanwhile, from 1992, when Vietnam began issuing the Red Book, to 1996, when the red book was amended for the first time, only 10 species were listed as ‘endangered’.

The IUCN’s Red List especially mentions Prionailurus viverrinus, which can be seen only in Southeast Asia and Vietnam (discovered in 1833). The level of risk of the species has been raised from ‘vulnerable’ to ‘endangered’ as its habitat has been narrowed rapidly as a result of the rapid shift of agriculture land to industrial and residential land.

Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, is considered the region seeing the most serious erosion of animal habitat.

(Source: Tien phong)