A piece published recently by The Revelator highlights the pressing need to conserve the world's orchids and to better document their status as they face increasing threats from illegal trade and habitat destruction. It draws upon research published in the International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences about the perils facing Bangladesh's orchids.
At least 32 orchid species native to Bangladesh have disappeared since the Scottish botanist William Roxburgh first documented hundreds of species in Hortus Bengalensis over 200 years ago. This represents the extinction of 17% of Bangladesh's 187 known orchid species. This is an alarming loss for biodiversity with broad implications for ecology, medicine and culture.
Of the 32 species now feared regionally extinct in Bangladesh, only four have been formally assessed by the IUCN Red List, the international database that assesses and tracks threatened species. There is a clear need, in Bangladesh and globally, to conduct more formal, updated evaluations of orchids' conservation status. For example, although the species Podochilus khasianus is known to have disappeared from at least four countries, it appears on the Red List as a species of "least conservation concern". In contrast, Gastrochilus calceolaris is listed as "critically endangered" due to habitat degradation and trade, but its conservation status has not been updated since 2004.
Podochilus khasianus
These problems of extinction and under-assessment are not unique to Bangladesh. More than 1,500 species currently appear on the IUCN Red List, with tens of thousands not yet assessed. Just a few days after the paper was published, another study in the journal Oryx suggested that nine orchid species from Madagascar may also have joined the ranks of extinction.
By Emma Palser