Much of western Africa, Ethiopia, and parts of Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are the hardest-hit regions, standing to lose more than 40 percent of their richness of plants, the BBC reported on Thursday.

Deforestation, population growth and climate change, are some of the threats the continent is facing all of which will impact on Africa’s biodiversity resulting in major social and political challenges and expected rapid population growth over the next decades.

"Biodiversity provides countless benefits to humans and losing diversity jeopardises our future," said lead researcher Dr Thomas Couvreur of the French National Institute for Sustainable Development.

African News Agency (ANA)