AN ATLAS of the world’s extinction hot spots, in which at least one species is in imminent danger of dying out, has been drawn up by scientists to guide global conservation.

The map, prepared by researchers from the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE), pinpoints 595 clearly defined sites that provide either the only or major remaining habitat for an endangered or seriously endangered species. Only a third of the hot spots are currently protected as conservation areas, and most are surrounded by large human populations that are threatening their future.

Urgent action to safeguard these sites is critical if humanity is to prevent a biodiversity crisis in which species are being lost at between 100 and 1,000 times the natural rate, scientists behind the study said.

“Although saving sites and species is vitally important in itself, this is about much more,” said Mike Parr, secretary of AZE. “At stake are the future genetic diversity of Earth’s ecosystems, the global ecotourism economy worth billions of dollars per year, and the incalculable benefit of clean water. We have a moral obligation to act.”

Taylor Ricketts, a scientist from the World Wide Fund for Nature, the environmental charity, who led the research, said: “We now know where the emergencies are: the species that will be tomorrow’s dodos unless we act quickly. The good news is we still have time to protect them.”

In the study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Dr Ricketts’s team used the World Conservation Union’s “red list” of threatened species to pick out mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and conifers that are acutely endangered and have a very narrow geographical range.

The research threw up 595 sites as priority hot spots, in which one or more species — 794 in total — is in danger and exists nowhere else in significant numbers. There are particular concentrations of hot spots in the Andes of South America, the Atlantic forest region of Brazil, the Caribbean and Madagascar. Mexico has the most hot spots, with 63, while there are 48 in Colombia, 39 in Brazil and 29 in Indonesia.

The Massif de la Hotte region of Haiti is the site with the most individual endangered species at risk, with 13 varieties of Eleutherodactylus frog that are found nowhere else and are threatened with extinction. Other species under threat include the volcano rabbit from Mexico, the Jamaican ground iguana, the giant-striped mongoose from Madagascar, and the ivory-billed woodpecker, that was presumed to be extinct before being rediscovered recently in the Cache River area of Arkansas in the US. The map provides a starting point for efforts to reduce extinctions, but the scientists added: “Global conservation must also consider broader biodiverse regions and ecological processes.”

NORTH AMERICA AND MEXICO

Mexico/Sur del Valle de Mexico: volcano rabbit

US/Huachuca mountains: Ramsey Canyon leopard frog

US/Cache river: ivory-billed woodpecker

SOUTH AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN

Colombia/Reserva Natural El Mirador: Fuertes’s parrot

Chile/Robinson Crusoe Island: Juan Fernández firecrown

Jamaica/Hellshire Hills: Jamaican ground iguana

EUROPE, CENTRAL ASIA AND JAPAN

China/Ahnui Chinese Alligator National Nature Reserve: Chinese alligator

Portugal/Azores, east of São Miguel: Azores bullfinch

Turkey/Silifke: Asia Minor spiny mouse

AFRICA AND MADAGASCAR

Madagascar/Daraina forest: golden-crowned sifaka

Madagascar/Tsimanampetsotsa Strict Nature Reserve: Giant-striped mongoose

Ivory Coast, Guinea, Liberia/Mont Nimba: Mont Nimba viviparous toad

SOUTH EAST ASIA

Indonesia/Ujung Kulon: Javan rhinoceros

Indonesia/Roti Island: Roti Island snake-necked turtle

AUSTRALASIA AND PACIFIC

Australia/Epping Forest National Park: northern hairy-nosed wombat

New Zealand/Codfish Island: kakapo

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