A tropical tree discovered in the Ebo forest in Cameroon has been named after actor Leonardo DiCaprio who was committed to the preservation of this tropical forest, scientists from the British botanical garden of Kew have just announced.
Article written by
Posted
Reading time : 1 min.
More than 200 species of plants and fungi were officially named in 2021 by researchers from Kew (west London) and their partners around the world. Among them, which range from a killer tobacco plant to an orchid that grows in total darkness, is theUvariopsis dicaprio. This four-meter-high tree with a trunk adorned with large yellow-green flowers was discovered in the Ebo forest, which is north of Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon, located in the south of the country.
It was named after the actor who signed up in 2020 alongside conservation organization Re: wild to prevent authorization to harvest timber for the purposes of timber production of more than 68,000 hectares of this forest. The Cameroonian government finally annulled this decision in August 2020, to the satisfaction of environmental defenders who had notably underlined the presence of primates threatened with extinction in this virgin forest.
“We really appreciated the support Leo gave us in the campaign to protect Ebo last year, so it seemed appropriate to honor him in this way, naming a species unique to this forest with his name.“, explained Dr Martin Cheek, principal investigator in the Africa team at Kew.”If the logging concession had been initiated, we would probably have lost this species due to the timber extraction and slash-and-burn agriculture that usually follows logging concessions.“, he added.
Corn Uvariopsis dicaprio is already considered to be critically endangered as the forest in which it is found is still threatened by logging, mining and conversion of land to plantations. “As long as a species does not have a scientific name, assessing its risk of extinction is almost impossible, making protection against extinction and researching their properties incredibly difficult.“, emphasizes Kew.
/2022/01/06/phpWo9QKZ.jpg)
Several species on the 2021 list are already considered threatened with extinction due to threats to their natural habitat and three are said to be already extinct.