Treehugger Tuesday

From the website MNN:

Haiti's first private nature reserve will protect 68 species of vertebrates
Noel Kirkpatrick
February 1, 2019, 12:06 p.m.

This 'jewel of biodiversity' encompasses more than 1,200 acres.

The critically endangered spiny green frog is one of 19 frog species found on Grand Bois mountain. (Photo: Robin Moore/Global Wildlife Conservation)

Haiti, the small Caribbean country that shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, has less than 1 percent of its original forests left, putting the country "on the verge of a potential ecological collapse," says West Sechrest, CEO and chief scientist for Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC), in a statement.

The GWC, along with Rainforest Trust, Temple University, Haiti National Trust and local NGO Société Audubon Haiti (SAH), have acquired more than 1,200 acres around Haiti's Grand Bois mountain, the groups announced this week. The area is home to 68 vertebrate species, including many that are facing extinction.

"We knew that we needed to take action to protect the country's staggering diversity of unique and threatened species, many of which are found only in Haiti," Sechrest says. "Global Wildlife Conservation has partnered with Haiti National Trust to directly protect, manage and restore this high-priority conservation site in an effort to begin to turn the tide of centuries of unregulated environmental destruction."

Read the entire article here