(London) A tropical tree discovered in Cameroon’s Ebo forest has been named after actor Leonardo DiCaprio who was committed to the preservation of the rainforest, scientists from the British Botanical Garden in Kew announced Thursday .
More than 200 species of plants and fungi were officially named in 2021 by Kew researchers and their partners around the world.
Among these species, which range from a killer tobacco plant to an orchid that grows in total darkness, is Uvariopsis dicaprio. This 4-meter-high tree with a trunk adorned with large yellow-green flowers was discovered in the Ebo forest, which is located north of Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon.
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 over 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 that Leo gave us in the campaign to protect Ebo last year, so it seemed appropriate to honor him in this way, by naming with his name a species unique to this forest”, explained Dr Martin Cheek, principal researcher in the Africa team at Kew.
“If the logging concession had been launched, we would probably have lost this species to timber extraction and slash-and-burn agriculture that usually follows logging concessions,” he added.
But Uvariopsis dicaprio is already considered 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,” Kew points out.
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.