Asian birdlife face extinction

Asian birdlife face extinction

TOKYO (AFP): Human activity including land clearances and illegal logging risk wiping out hundreds of species of Asian birds, a new study warned on UN World Environment Day on Tuesday.

Conservation group Birdlife International said 323 species were threatened out of a total of 2,700 in Asia, with Indonesia home to the world's highest number of endangered birds.

"The total for 2001 is a shocking 12 percent of all bird species in the region," it said in a statement accompanying the publication in Tokyo of Threatened Birds of Asia: The Birdlife International Red Data Book.

"All 323 threatened species are at risk of extinction from human activities, particularly habitat loss or degradation resulting from unsustainable and often illegal logging, and land and wetland clearance for agriculture or exotic timber plantations," the statement said.