Letter to the Editor: Egypt's National Fungus Day

摘要

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has recognized that fungalconservation is just as important as animal and plant conservation, and has called ongovernments worldwide to pay much more attention to fungal conservation. Fungi are differentfrom animals and plants. Since at least 1970, scientists have agreed that fungi belong in theirown separate biological kingdom which is likely to contain far more species than the plantkingdom.Where plants produce and animals consume, fungi are the recyclers. Fungi are just asmuch threatened as animals and plants by climate change, habitat destruction, invasives,pollution, over-exploitation and even, in some cases, persecution. Habitats important forthreatened fungi may be different from habitats important for threatened animals and plants.Biodiversity can only be conserved if the well-being of fungi is given as muchconsideration as that of animals and plants: without fungi life on earth would be unsustainable.Fungi provide enormously important ecosystem services (e.g. soil fertility, mycorrhizas,crop protection, litter decomposition, checks and balances). The economic value of such serviceshas been estimated as running to trillions of US dollars. Fungi are also a very important source ofunusual chemicals of great value in industry and medicine. The yeast used to make bread is afungus, and many pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics, statins and anti-cancer drugs are derivedfrom fungi. Compared with many animals and plants, very little is known about fungi. Thatknowledge gap needs to be explicitly recognized and plans should be prepared to deal with thatgap.In 2014 and 2016 Abdel-Azeem the founder of Arab Society for Fungal Conservation(ASFC) proposed a good candidate for celebration of Egypt’s National Fungus Day on the 20thof February. Abdel-Azeem with the help of international societies, agencies and mycologistsdecreed the Egypt’s National Fungus Day in Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the 20th of February2016 for the first time.