CANBERRA, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Mammals living in southern and eastern Australia are among the animals at a higher risk of becoming endangered in the future, research has found.
In a study published on Monday, researchers from Australian National University (ANU) analyzed how climate change, human population growth and the rate of change in land use will impact the resilience of specific species.
They found that up to 20 percent of land mammals will face at least two threats by the year 2100 and identified southern and eastern Australia and sub-Saharan Africa as hotspots for future endangered species.
Marcel Cardillo, lead author of the research from ANU, said that large mammals such as elephants, kangaroos and giraffes are most vulnerable because of longer gestation periods.
"There's a congruence of multiple future risk factors in Sub-Saharan African and southeastern Australia: climate change (which is expected to be particularly severe in Africa), human population growth, and changes in land use," he said in a media release.
"And there are a lot of large mammal species that are likely to be more sensitive to these things. It's pretty much the perfect storm."
The Australian government in October announced a new 10-year threatened species action plan, which included a goal to prevent new extinctions of native species.
Cardillo said that there must be an awareness of how conservation impacts Indigenous communities as traditionally conservation has relied heavily on declaring protected areas.
"There's an important part to play for broad-scale modeling studies because they can provide a broad framework and context for planning," he said.
"But science is only a very small part of the mix. We hope our model acts as a catalyst for bringing about some kind of change in the outlook for conservation." ■