Desert wildlife under threat.

28/09/2006 00:00:00 June 2006. Urgent action is needed to protect wildlife in deserts with hunting among the biggest threats, says a new UN Environment Report . Large convoys of air conditioned caravans follow hunters across the deserts of Arabia, Kazakhstan and Sudan,” it adds.

Desert species on the brink of extinction or declining fast include various species of gazelle, oryx, addax, Arabian tahr and the Barbary sheep as well as one of the falconers favourite prey, the Houbara. Probable impacts include those created by new roads, expanding settlements and other infrastructure developments that concentrate around desert montane areas.

“Sky islands” in deserts are plant and animal communities that have been isolated in mountain ranges when the deserts became rapidly more arid some 20,000 years ago. Many hold unique and rare species that, like oceanic islands, have evolved in isolation. These include the rich pine and oak forests of the Moroccan Atlas Mountains; the Arabian tahr goat found in the Al Hajar Mountains near the Gulf of Oman and the wild olives and Saharan myrtles of Niger’s Air Massif.

“At greatest risk are the few patches of dry woodlands associated with desert mountain habitats which may decline by up to 3.5 per cent per year.” Indeed experts fear that these woodlands—areas which made the great desert trades such as the Silk Road, the cross-Sahara trade and many others possible-- could be largely lost in less than 50 years unless urgent action is taken to protect and conserve them. Desert wetlands, fed by the large rivers crossing deserts, are probably the most threatened ecosystem, as a result of their valuable water supplies being diverted to domestic or agricultural use. These include the extremely threatened ecosystems of the Aral Sea and the Mesopotamian Marshlands in Iraq.

The report estimates that desert wilderness -- those areas where there are no nearby roads, will decline from just under 60 per cent of the current total desert area to just over 30 per cent by 2050.

“Species such as desert bighorn sheep, the Asian Houbara bustard and California desert tortoise, that are sensitive to fragmentation of habitat or poaching, induced by increased access to areas previously not accessible to people, will be affected significantly by this change,” says the report.

Courtesy of the UN Environment Report, 'Global Deserts Outlook launched on World Environment Day'.