News published: 21 March 2023

Rare trees: The fascinating stories of the world’s most threatened species

• Discover the beauty – and importance – of the world’s most threatened tree species in a new book – Rare Trees.
• Forests cover nearly a third of the world’s surface, and the trees that make them up include a staggering diversity of nearly 60,000 species.
• Rare Trees profiles some of these unique threatened species – including the most charismatic, fascinating, and bizarre examples from all around the globe.
• Rare Trees offers readers a new appreciation for the importance of trees and will inspire them to preserve this critical canopy of life.

A new book, Rare Trees filled with facts and illustrated with beautiful colour photographs, reveal the secrets, stories, and beauty of the world’s rarest trees.

Forests cover nearly a third of the world’s surface, and they are made up of nearly 60,000 tree species. However, the Global Tree Assessment released its first report in 2021, which revealed that nearly 1/3 of these tree species are threatened with extinction. And the impact of losing these trees will have far reaching impacts on both people and the planet.

Rare Trees profiles some of these unique threatened species – including the most charismatic, fascinating, and bizarre examples from all around the globe. These tree species have adapted to thrive on steep mountains, in cloud forests, on dry savannahs, in parched deserts or in tropical wetlands – and they play specific ecological roles in their unique environments. They provide direct benefits to people, such as food, energy, medicines, housing, etc., as well as playing a vital ecological roles, such as providing habitat to half of the world’s known animal and plant species.

In Rare Trees, Sara Oldfield and Malin Rivers share stories on some of the most threatened tree species on the planet. Many of the examples highlight the exceptional effort from BGCI’s practical tree conservation work, supported by the Global Trees Campaign (a collaboration between Fauna & Flora International and BGCI) to work with partners to carry out conservation projects for the world’s most threatened tree species. To learn more about BGCI’s Tree Conservation work, click here.

In addition, Rare Trees covers a wide range of taxa from conifers to magnolias to oaks – and to learn more about the work BGCI does to catalyse groups of institutions and experts to collaboratively prevent extinction of these priority threatened plant groups, see the Global Conservation Consortia.

Rare Trees will give everyone who loves trees an armchair tour of unique species from around the globe, and inspire you to help preserve this critical canopy of life.

Buy your copy and read about the fascinating stories of the world’s most threatened species for yourself!

Support independent bookshops here:

Or get it directly from the publishers, Timber Press, here: