Global: Vanilla and avocados among dozens of wild crop relatives on brink of extinction

This story was originally published by The Guardian and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Wild relatives of some of the world’s most important crops, including potatoes, avocados, and vanilla, are threatened with extinction, according to a study. Vanilla, an orchid native to South and Central America, is facing the highest risk of extinction, with all eight wild species found in the region listed as endangered or critically endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) red list of threatened plants and animals. Wild cotton is the second-most threatened with 92 per cent of species at risk of disappearing, according to the study. Three in five avocado species are at risk, while 23 per cent of wild potato species are facing extinction. Relatives of the 224 wild crops analyzed in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras have become staples around the world, crucial to human diets and clothes production, and were first ...