DOHA — The destruction of natural habitats in Europe is wiping out butterfly, beetle and dragonfly species across the region, the updated European ‘Red List’ of endangered species showed Tuesday. ‘When a Red List like this raises the alarm, the implications for our own future are clear. This is a worrying decline,’ said EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik. Scientists examining Europe’s 435 butterfly species found that the populations of one in three species are falling and nine percent are already threatened with extinction. ‘Most butterflies at risk are confined to southern Europe,’ said Annabelle Cuttelod, coordinator of the European Red List at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). ‘Their main threat is habitat loss, most often caused by changes in agricultural practices, either through intensification or abandonment, or to climate change, forest fires and the expansion of tourism.’ Likewise, logging has led to a decline in the populations of some beetles species that are depend on decaying wood. Known as saproxylic beetles, they play an important role in ecosystems by recycling nutrients. Some 11 percent or 46 species of them are at risk of being lost from the region, while seven […]