Additionally, 1,000 plants and animals – including the Borneo elephant and a South American cactus – are threatened with extinction.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, which updates its list of threatened species every year, classifies 45,000 animal and plant species as directly threatened, and red-lists over 160,000.
Poaching, climate change, and the spread of invasive species are cited as the main reasons why more and more species are threatened. More than one-third of amphibians, sharks, and corals – and more than one-quarter of all mammals – are threatened with extinction.
The Canary Islands giant lizard, which can grow up to 80 centimeters long, is one of them. The population has halved in just ten years, according to IUCN. The Borneo elephant, one of the smallest elephant species, is also strongly threatened. According to IUCN's estimates, there are barely 1,000 animals left.
Illegal garden trade has led to a sharp decline in a popular indoor plant, copiapoa. Eighty percent of all species in the rand cactus family that grow wild in Chile's desert are now threatened with extinction, and IUCN warns that they will completely disappear.
One species that has made significant progress, on the other hand, is the Iberian lynx. At the turn of the millennium, only 60 individuals of the rare cat species remained, but thanks to targeted efforts, the population has grown to over 2,000 animals.
