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February 2, 2005 : Conservationists named 9 new "Biodiversity Hotspots"
In a recent press release, Conservation International updated the list with 9 new hotspots, although there has been no peer review of this revision and these new hotspots are still questioned by some. The list of authors for this new scientific assessment noticeably lacked the original author of the hotspot idea.

The decision by groups like Conservation International to focus on biodiversity hotspots is similar to World Wildlife Fund 's (WWF) Global 200 initiative, which identifies over 200 Ecoregion s as priorities for conservation of biodiversity. Both are scientific initiatives that try to quantify species diversity, and the two schemes both target many of the same regions. The main differences are in the scale of the regions—the biodiversity hotspots tend to be larger regions, and generally include multiple WWF ecoregions—and CI's focus on Terrestrial Ecoregion s, while the WWF scheme includes Freshwater and Marine Ecoregion s as well.

A detailed map prepared by National Geographic of the hotspots and individual endangered fauna details is provided at Conservation International's Website .


The 34 biodiversity hotspots by region


North and Central America

South America

Europe and Central Asia

Africa

Asia-Pacific


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