Abstract:
Over a long period of time, cycads endemic to Africa
have been facing high risk of extinction. Several conservation efforts
have been made to reduce the risk of losing these highly endangered
species. In this study we review the current risk of extinction of all
African cycads species. We calculated the percentages of each category
of species found in African cycads using the IUCN (International
Union of Conservation of Nature) red list of threatened species
2014 version. We compared our result with that of Donaldson
(2003) on percentages of different categories of IUCN for cycads in
Africa which was carried out a decade ago. We also calculated the
percentage of population trend in African cycads. When comparing
these results, we discovered that over one decade there was no
improvement in cycads conservation despite several conservation efforts
that were made during this period. The results of the population
trend also showed that the majority of African cycads are experiencing
population decreases. These results highlight that the risk of
extinction of African cycads is still very high and much conservation
effort is still required to properly tackle ecological factors pushing
these endangered species to extinction.
