LIHUE, Hawaii — Researchers at a Hawaii nonprofit dedicated to tropical plant research and conservation have completed an analysis of plants that are native to and only found on Kauai.
The researchers from the National Tropical Botanical Garden completed the Kauai catalog of endemic plants for the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species last month, the Garden Island reported Monday.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species catalogues the extinction risk of animal, fungus and plant species worldwide and is used in conservation, government agencies and a variety of other entities to inform decision-making and further research, the newspaper reported.
The completed Kauai catalog analyzed all 255 single-island endemic vascular plants on the island.
The National Tropical Botanical Garden determined that 5% of Kauai's single-island endemic vascular plants are already extinct, another 5% are possibly extinct or extinct in the wild and the remaining 90% are threatened.
The Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Hawaii Plant Extinction Prevention Program all also contributed to the project.
