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At least 60% of wild coffee is in danger of extinction, including the species behind one of the most popular drinks in the world, scientists warn.
Researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, have found that 75 of the 124 wild coffee species in the world are threatened by forest loss, climate change and the worsening of fungal diseases and pests.
They include wild Arabica, a species from Ethiopia cultivated to provide 60% of the global trade of billions of pounds in coffee, but which is valued at risk largely due to climate change.
Wild coffee is threatened by the destruction or damage of forests where they grow, for agriculture and other human activities, and by the increase in temperatures that alter the specific climatic conditions they need to thrive.
The threats affecting wild coffee are important for the future of one of the largest breweries in the world because the wild varieties have been used to raise and improve the stocks grown over the years, experts said.
Coffee growers, who grow Arabica or Robusta coffee, have already begun to point out that their crops are influenced by changing weather patterns, rising temperatures and new pests and diseases.
The variety of traits present in wild species will probably be even more important in the future for the development of plants able to cope with threats such as the longest dry seasons caused by climate change or the spread of pests.
The research on the head of coffee by Kew, dr. Aaron Davis warned: "If you start losing these species, the options for developing a resistant coffee for the future will drop very quickly".
Less than half of the wild coffee species are held in seed banks or in collections of living plants and more than a quarter (28%) are not known to occur in any protected area, they also warn scientists.
They demanded greater conservation of the natural environment, seed banks and plant collections, and called for support for the African countries where most wild species are found to help them protect their coffee resources.
In a study published in Science Advances, scientists evaluated wild coffee species against the Red List endangered species criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
They found that 75 species (60%) were considered endangered, with 13 species in the category most at risk of serious extinction, while 40 are in danger and 22 are vulnerable to extinction.
The level of risk for coffee is much higher than for plants as a whole, with an estimated 22% of endangered plant species worldwide.
Dr Davis, the lead author of the study, said: "What we are saying is that 60% is really very high, it is a real alarm bell.For an important global product, it starts ringing bells 39; alarm.
"It is a tragedy to lose any wild species, be it a bird or a plant or an animal, it is bad enough.
"But when you have a crop that supports the livelihoods of 100 million people only in production in the cultivation of coffee, then consider the value of street coffee chains and supermarket cafes, it's huge."
A second study by Kew, published in Global Change Biology, specifically looked at wild arabica, the source of a harvest with an export value of $ 13.8 billion (£ 10.7 billion) in 2015 / 2016.
He discovered that when climate change was taken into account, wild Arabica, found only in the humid forests of Ethiopia and in a small area of South Sudan, passes from being classified as "not threatened "a" in danger ".
The dott. Justin Moat of Kew, one of the authors of the paper, said: "These results are so important as they indicate that the risk of extinction of many other species of coffee could be much worse if we consider climate change".
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