Members of the Awa Tribe in the Para province of the Brazilian Amazon Jungle walk along a path cleared by loggers. Photo / Supplied
About half the 15,000 tree species in the Amazon - the world's most diverse forest - are threatened by deforestation, an international study says.
The report lays bare the destruction of an ecosystem often referred to as the lungs of the Earth.
"At least 36 per cent and up to
57 per cent of all Amazonian tree species are likely to qualify as globally threatened," said the study in the journal Science Advances, which used criteria from the respected International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Under a business-as-usual scenario, about 40 per cent of the original Amazon forest would be destroyed by 2050, the researchers found. But with stricter conservation measures, they said, that number could be halved.
The good news is that significant populations of endangered trees survive in protected areas of the Amazon, the researchers said.
