The mandate of the IUCN Red List has expanded to identify large-scale patterns and trends in the status of species. Identifying taxonomic groups or regions that tend to have species that are facing a high or low probability of extinction can be accomplished by conducting multi-species analyses. The traditional approach for obtaining Red List assessments is through the SSC Specialist Groups. However, new approaches are now being developed in order to rapidly increase the taxonomic coverage and the frequency and rigour of such assessments.
In 2001, the Species Survival Commission (SSC) of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science (CABS) at Conservation International (CI) began the Biodiversity Assessment Initiative, an exciting and ambitious project of establishing biodiversity monitoring baselines for over 100,000 of the world research and management of the Western's species.
The Global Amphibian Assessment was the first phase of the Biodiversity Assessment Initiative, in collaboration with NatureServe. IUCN/SSC and CI/CABS are also collaborating with other partners to complete a global assessment of all mammals (scheduled for completion in 2006), and also an assessment of all reptiles. The primary focus of the Initiative will turn to reptiles, also in collaboration with NatureServe, with completion scheduled for 2007. The goals for each species group assessment are the same: to map the distribution and assess the conservation status of each species in order to establish global baselines for biodiversity monitoring and conservation planning. Some of the new approaches being adopted are outlined below.
The Global Amphibian Assessment (GAA) greatly enhances our current knowledge of amphibians. Importantly, for the first time all amphibians have been assessed against the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria (IUCN 2001). The assessment includes all 5,743 currently described species of amphibian, although new species are still being discovered at a rapid rate and these will be incorporated in future updates of the assessment. Prior to the GAA, fewer than 1,000 species had been assessed, mainly in Australia, North America and Europe. The assessment began in April of 2001 and took over three years to complete. Full details about the GAA can be seen at http://www.globalamphibians.org/, but a summary of the process is provided here.
Objectives:
To determine the scale (both the magnitude of threat and the geographic focus) of the current extinction crisis in amphibians.
To identify the most important geographic areas and habitats which need to be conserved to avoid species extinctions.
To identify the major threats and to propose mitigating measures and prioritized conservation actions to address them.
To establish a network focused on amphibians so that the Global Amphibian Assessment can be kept current, and expertise can be targeted to address the highest conservation priorities.
Coordination:
The central coordination of the project was done by the IUCN/SSC - CI/CABS Biodiversity Assessment Unit based at the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International (CI/CABS). The small coordinating team was dependent on the expertise of the world research and management of the Western s amphibian experts for the success of the Global Amphibian Assessment. A full listing of all the participants in the assessment can be found in the Acknowledgements.
The GAA was implemented in five main stages: data collection, data review, data consolidation, data analysis, and the determination of future steps.
Data collection:
For every amphibian species currently known, the following data were collected:
Species systematics
Geographic range (including a distribution map)
Red List assessment
Population information
Habitat preferences
Major threats
Conservation measures
Species utilization
Other general information
Important literature references
The task of collecting the initial data was divided into 33 geographic regions that were defined to cover the global distribution of all amphibians. Regional coordinators were appointed and given the responsibility of collecting data on all the amphibians in their region.
Data Review:
All the data collected in the initial stage of the assessment were subject to peer review. For most regions this was done through expert workshops, and in a small number of regions it was completed through individual review of the data by leading herpetologists in the region. There were 14 workshops held in various countries to review the data. At each workshop amphibian experts for the region were invited to participate and contribute their knowledge as well as review the data already compiled by the regional coordinators.
Data Consolidation:
As the review of data was completed, region-by-region, the information was consolidated by the coordinating team at the Biodiversity Assessment Unit. Specific tasks that needed to be addressed included:
ensuring consistency in the application of the Red List Categories and Criteria between regions and taxonomic groups;
proofreading and correcting the text accounts for all species;
final editing of maps to ensure that small islands near the coast are not incorrectly included in species distributions;
final resolution of remaining outstanding issues, mainly to do with taxonomic problems; and
inclusion of newly described species, and other taxonomic changes.
Data Analysis:
Some of the findings from the GAA are presented in this publication, while the data themselves are available on http://www.globalamphibians.org and http://www.iucnredlist.org. A book containing the data on CD as well as an in depth analysis of the data will also be made available in 2005 or 2006.
Future Steps:
A framework is being established that will enable an ongoing process of maintaining and updating the GAA database to be implemented. In particular, a new IUCN/SSC Global Amphibian Specialist Group (GASG) is being formed consisting of regional sections. It is hoped that the GAA will generate widespread interest among herpetologists to take part in the group. In addition to catalysing conservation actions on behalf of amphibians, the GASG members will have the responsibility of keeping the GAA results updated. The intention is for the GAA to not be a one-off project, but rather the start of an ongoing process to implement global long-term monitoring of amphibians.
All mammal species were assessed for the first time in 1996 (Baillie and Groombridge 1996). However, although a great deal is known about mammalian biology, systematics, distribution patterns and conservation status, this knowledge is neither uniform nor complete. Moreover, of the more than 5,000 mammal species known worldwide, the threat status of more than 2,500 is insufficiently known or inadequately documented.
A number of mammal data initiatives have emerged in recent years among various organizations and a partial overlap across some of these initiatives calls for interaction between them. In light of this, a meeting of representatives of the major initiatives was held in February 2002 at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, California. The meeting resulted in the creation of the ‘Global Mammal Partnership’ comprising IUCN/SSC, the University of Virginia, Institute of Applied Ecology/University of Rome-Italy, NatureServe, CI/CABS, WWF, Institute of Zoology-ZSL/Imperial College-UK, Smithsonian Institution and Bat Conservation International.
Within the context of this partnership, IUCN/SSC together with CI/CABS, the Institute of Zoology, the Institute of Applied Ecology, and the University of Virginia, have initiated the Global Mammal Assessment (GMA) with the goal of consolidating all the available information on the systematics, distribution, ecology, and conservation status of mammals. The GMA will review the status of all mammal species (c. 5,416 described species), map the geographic distributions, assess the degree of threat, and record essential habitats, important threats, conservation measures in place and needed, and utilization details for each species.
The GMA will follow a similar strategy to the groundbreaking work of the Global Amphibian Assessment (GAA) described above. However a key difference between the GAA and GMA is that the SSC already has an established, comprehensive network of mammal Specialist Groups. This network comprises approximately 2,000 members arranged within 34 Specialist Groups (for further details see http://www.iucn.org/themes/ssc/sgs/sgs.htm). As a result, the data gathering and assessment process will be done either through the existing Specialist Group structures or in certain cases will be workshop-based.
The existing SSC mammal Specialist Group structure is very strong for certain groups of mammals (e.g., Antelope, Canid, Cat, Small Carnivore, and Lagomorph) and all of these groups have produced at least one IUCN/SSC Action Plan in the last decade. Consequently, species falling within the jurisdiction of these well-supported and well-coordinated groups can be adequately assessed by the members of these groups. Funding to support the activities of these groups will be raised wherever possible.
In contrast, the SSC mammal network is somewhat less developed for small mammals (e.g., bats, insectivores, rodents, etc.), and for these taxa the data collection and assessment process is largely being carried out by means of regional workshops involving all the relevant experts. Workshops proved to be the most important tool for the GAA, providing a platform for discussion, interaction, and group peer-review of species relationships, life-history data and distribution maps. Such workshops have proved to be most productive in terms of collating the greatest amount of species-based information within a relatively short time period. The workshops for these taxa will be divided according to geographic region, particularly focusing on regions where information is the poorest: e.g., Africa, Madagascar, south and southeast Asia, Central America (Mesoamerica), and South America.
The GMA process is now well underway, and some results are already evident in this publication and in the 2004 IUCN Red List with the inclusion of 854 new assessments for mammals. These included, for example, all Canid species reassessed by the Canid Specialist Group, and the results from the GMA workshop on African small mammals (788 species of bats, insectivores and rodents). These new assessments are provisional, as they still need to be fully reviewed by the GMA coordinating team to ensure global consistency. The final results of the GMA are expected to appear in the 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™.
The Global Reptile Assessment was launched in July 2004, focusing on assessments of the world's c. 8,000 species of reptiles. A similar model to that used for the GAA will be used for the GRA. Two workshops for the GRA are already planned; a workshop to assess the status of Mediterranean reptiles will be held in Spain in December 2004 under the auspices of the IUCN Regional Office for the Mediterranean, while a second workshop to assess reptiles in Mexico is being planned by NatureServe, to be held in early 2005.
The Species Programme of IUCN initiated a Freshwater Biodiversity Assessment Programme in 2003 to put in place a factual underpinning to support efforts to conserve and manage freshwater biodiversity. The specific objectives of this programme are to:
build expertise and capacity on freshwater biodiversity through establishment of regional networks;
establish a freshwater biodiversity information system within the SSC Species Information Service (SIS);
carry out threatened status (IUCN Red List) assessments for key groups of freshwater species;
identify critical sites for the conservation of these species groups;
determine key threatening processes and priority conservation actions in each region;
assess the priority requirements for freshwater biodiversity conservation; and
communicate the results of the project to governments, donors and NGO's in order to raise awareness and include freshwater biodiversity conservation in their priorities for action.
The main activities of the programme so far have focussed on regional assessments. The first regional freshwater biodiversity assessment was completed for eastern Africa in December 2003. This assessment provides the most comprehensive baseline dataset for freshwater taxa in eastern Africa and the results will be made widely available throughout the region. Approximately 1,700 taxa were assessed, including >1,000 freshwater fishes, 215 molluscs, 304 dragonflies and damselflies, 38 crabs, and 91 aquatic plants. All the assessments of threatened status are still to be evaluated but some were processed for inclusion in the 2004 IUCN Red List (see also Box 2.4 for the provisional results).
The Freshwater Biodiversity Assessment Programme is establishing a Global Freshwater Fish Specialist Group in collaboration with Wetlands International. The group is to have a regional structure of sub-groups with their own vicechairs who will form a steering committee under the leadership of a Global Chair. However, until this Specialist Group is fully functional the Freshwater Biodiversity Assessment Programme assists the Red List Programme in evaluating all freshwater species assessments submitted for inclusion in the Red List. For example, the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group facilitated a Conservation Assessment and Management Plan (CAMP) Workshop in May 2001 which assessed the status of approximately 95 freshwater fish taxa endemic to Madagascar (Conservation Breeding Specialist Group 2002). The process to peer review and update these assessments was coordinated by the Freshwater Biodiversity Assessment Programme and the results are included in the 2004 IUCN Red List.
The current focus of the programme is on raising funds to expand the assessments to other regions and continents, with the goal of achieving global coverage as rapidly as possible. A funding proposal has been submitted to extend the eastern Africa assessment to the rest of Africa. If successful this project will include a number of case studies to demonstrate best practices for integrating the biodiversity datasets into the development planning process. Regional assessments are also planned for the La Plata River basin in South America, Europe, and the Mekong River Basin in southeast Asia.
Funding opportunities for single taxon global assessments are also being investigated. But under the auspices of the Odonata Specialist Group, a Global Dragonfly Assessment (covering more than 5,000 species of dragonflies and damselflies) is already well underway.
The collaboration between IUCN/SSC and CI/CABS is now in the process of expanding to include marine species. Funds are currently being sought to implement an assessment of all species of marine fishes (more than 15,000 species) in three years, from 2005 to 2007. This Global Marine Species Assessment (GMSA) will be implemented in a similar manner to the GAA, and will probably include at least 20 expert data review workshops. The GMSA will also work closely with existing SSC Specialist Groups working on marine species, such as the Shark Specialist Group, Grouper and Wrasse Specialist Group, Coral Reef Fish Specialist Group, and Cetacean Specialist Group. Prior to the launch of the GMSA, IUCN/SSC and CI/CABS will hold expert consultations to agree protocols for the mapping of marine species, and to enhance the IUCN Habitat Authority File to provide better coverage of marine and coastal habitats. The GMSA will hugely improve the still very poor coverage of marine species in the IUCN Red List.
A complete assessment of the world's plants is a daunting task given that the estimated number of species ranges from 223,000 to 422,000 species. However, a number of initiatives are underway to address this situation, especially since the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) in April 2002 (CBD Secretariat 2002). Target 2 of the GSPC is a “preliminary assessment of the conservation status of all known plant species, at national, regional and international levels” by 2010.
IUCN, through the SSC plant Specialist Groups, is encouraging all of its members to complete plant species assessments for the Red List. However, to date only two Specialist Groups have been able to assess all the species under their jurisdiction, namely the Conifer Specialist Group (618 species) and the Cycad Specialist Group (288 species). The Carnivorous Plant Specialist Group has completed assessments for two genera: Nepenthes and Sarracenia (91 species; generally referred to as pitcher plants). Plans are also well-advanced to start a Global Palm Assessment under the auspices of Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami, Florida and the SSC Palm Specialist Group, which will assess the status of all of the world's palms (c. 2,200 species). However, all these taxonomic groups are relatively small and certainly not representative of overall plant diversity. In order to increase the number of assessments to reach anything like the 34,000 listed in the 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants (Walter and Gillett 1998) requires major initiatives involving multiple organizations and multiple approaches to fast-track the process:
A joint project proposal is being developed by IUCN and Plantlife International to undertake plant and important site assessments in ten plant-rich countries around the world (as a pilot phase project). In turn, this work will help countries meet the target adopted at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development to “significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010”. The project will provide both tools and capacity building so that countries can identify their most threatened plant species as well as their most important areas for plant biodiversity. Once this information is known, plant conservation action plans at both species and site level will be developed. While identification of threatened species and important plant areas alone will not conserve the plants, this information is essential in developing adequate conservation strategies. It is also fundamental to implementing several targets of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. The ten pilot countries will act as models in their region for other countries that are also committed to achieving the plant conservation targets adopted in the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. By training trainers in these conservation techniques, this pilot phase will achieve a multiplier effect as well as develop models and protocols that may be used elsewhere. This project will provide technical and logistical support to these pilot countries to enable them to undertake this fundamental work on which all plant conservation activities need to be based.
The IUCN Species Programme has developed a framework for regional and national Red List priorities, and is seeking close collaboration with a number of plant-rich countries where plant assessment work is well advanced. For example, Spain has compiled a national Red List and these assessments need to be incorporated into the IUCN Red List as has been done for Ecuadorian endemics (see Box 2.6). The 1997 Plant Red List incorporated large numbers of assessments from Australia, South Africa and the US. These are once again clearly target countries for inclusion, as the information is available in each country but, due to different methods of assessment, has not yet been included in the IUCN Red List. Specific projects aimed at assessing plants in “hot spots” such as the Caucasus, China and eastern Africa are under development.
Target 1 of the GSPC is “a widely accessible working list of plant species, as a step towards a complete world flora” (CBD Secretariat 2002). Several leading botanical organizations are involved in tackling this target, and the IUCN Species Programme is collaborating with some of these (in particular the Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden) to seek ways in which their work on target one can be linked to target two. Methodologies are being developed by RBG Kew and Missouri to enable herbarium data to be used to obtain, relatively quickly, preliminary Red List assessments for large numbers of species that can then be examined and assessed more carefully by the relevant expert networks for the IUCN Red List (see Willis et al. 2003).
There are some taxonomic groups that stand out in terms of their overall contribution to plant diversity worldwide (species richness and occurrence in a wide variety of ecosystems), particularly legumes, orchids, grasses, ferns, bryophytes, lichens, and some families of bulbs and trees. These are all poorly represented on the IUCN Red List at present and should be the focus of specific species assessment programmes. Several Specialist Groups have suggested focussing their attention onto discrete, relatively taxonomically stable groups, which could then be included in global analyses. For example the Orchid Specialist Group (SG) has recommended selecting a few tribes (e.g., the Cypripedioideae, Cymbideae, Orchidae, etc.); the Bulb SG two families (Amaryllidaceae and Iridaceae); the Global Tree SG several families or genera (e.g., Rhododendron, Aceraceae, Fagaceae, Magnoliaceae, Dipterocarpaceae, etc.– this work is already well-underway with institutional support provided to the SG by Fauna and Flora International); and the Pteridophyte SG selected eight families (Lycopodiaceae, Ophioglossaceae, Aspleniaceae, etc.) for which global assessments could take place. The SSC has also recognized the need to form a Legume Specialist Group that works in close collaboration with the International Legume Database & Information Service (see http://www.ildis.org), and it has been suggested that the subfamily Papilionoideae is a group that could be totally assessed. Other groups, although not represented globally, could also be completely assessed. These include some families of succulent plants (e.g., Cactaceae, Crassulaceae, Aizoaceae, etc.).
For non-vascular plants, the Bryophyte SG has suggested evaluating the genus Macromitrium, which has about 700 species, which occur in Asia, Africa, South and North America, and Australia. And although technically not plants, the Lichen SG has proposed the family Lobariaceae, which consists of three larger genera (Lobaria, Sticta, Pseudocyphellaria), which have a wide distribution in all continents except Antarctica (382 species). Note that the majority of these species are probably threatened (although not yet formally listed on the IUCN Red List).
Better information is available for birds than for any other comparable group of organisms. Although many gaps remain, a great deal is known about their taxonomy, distribution, habitat preferences, movements, numbers, population trends, ecology, and behaviour. Compared to other groups, birds are easy to observe. They are relatively big, attractive and conspicuous; most are active by day; they can be identified in the field, from a distance; and although they are diverse, the number of species (c. 10,000) is manageable. For all these reasons, people enjoy watching birds and are able to provide useful data (BirdLife International 2004b).
This huge array of information is brought together in a meaningful way for conservation. Since 1980, BirdLife International (and its precursor the International Council for Bird Preservation) has published Red Data Books, presenting information on globally threatened birds. BirdLife International have, since 1988, published four complete assessments of the status of all the world's bird species (Collar and Andrew 1988; Collar et al. 1994; BirdLife International 2000, 2004a). A new approach was adopted by BirdLife to solicit up-to-date information for the 2004 edition of State of the World's Birds. This was the development of internet-based discussion forums on specific species, groups of species or particular areas. The discussion forums are open to anyone who wishes to register, and each of the discussion groups is moderated. This approach has helped improve the flow of information and made the assessment process more participatory and transparent.
The 2004 IUCN Red List now includes assessments for all the world's bird species (including Least Concern species) as provided by BirdLife International. But for full details on the supporting documentation for each species, users are referred to the searchable World Bird Database on the web at http://www.birdlife.net/datazone/search/species_search.html or the CD-ROM version (BirdLife International 2004a).
A large number of regional (i.e., sub-national, national and regional) Red Data Books and Red Data Lists have been published around the world (e.g., for an account of Red List activities in European countries see the papers in de Iongh et al. 2003). In some of these publications, the Red List assessments are based on classification systems of threat (e.g., the Heritage conservation status ranks used in the United States and elsewhere (Master et al. 2000)) developed and adopted within the country concerned; many of the older publications are based on the pre-1994 system of qualitative IUCN Red List Categories (as used for example in Groombridge 1993 and Walter and Gillett 1998); but an ever increasing number of regional Red List assessments are based on the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria (IUCN 1994a, 2001). The IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria, however, were developed primarily for application at the global level. Hence assessments of non-endemic species at national levels based on these criteria could result in incorrect and even misleading (especially when linked to conservation priority setting schemes) listings (see Gärdenfors 1996). As a result, IUCN through the Red List Programme has formulated regional guidelines to guide the assessment of endemic and non-endemic species (IUCN 2003; a downloadable PDF version is available at http://www.iucn.org/themes/ssc/redlists/regionalguidelines.htm).
The regional application guidelines are not a fixed set of rules that must be followed but a set of best-practice guidelines that indicate the preferred approaches to be followed and the issues that need to be addressed. Adoption of the regional guidelines is encouraged as they help make regional Red Lists more comparable, they promote the sharing of species information between neighbouring countries, and they promote better flow of information between the regional and global levels.
A National Red List Advisory Group (NRLAG) has been established by the IUCN/SSC Red List Committee to actively promote the use of the guidelines, and to act as an advisory group on best practice. The NRLAG intends developing three inter-related projects: (1) a survey of the Convention on Biological Diversity focal points to evaluate their approach to national threatened species lists; (2) an evaluation and analysis of several countries which have or are planning to apply the IUCN Red List Criteria at a national level; and (3) to hold a workshop involving the selected test countries where the different experiences and problems can be shared and solutions developed. The NRLAG is particularly interested in the linkages between Red Lists and conservation policy and priority setting for conservation actions.
Compilers of regional Red Lists are encouraged to submit assessments of all endemic species for possible inclusion in the IUCN Red List. All submissions must include the necessary supporting documentation (IUCN 2001; see http://www.iucnredlist.org/info/organization.html) and are subject to peer review by the relevant Red List Authorities.
Although we encourage the development of regional or even taxonomic Red Data Books and Lists, and promote the use of the regional application guidelines and the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria, the Red List Consortium cannot guarantee the quality of the assessments in all these publications as they are often produced completely independently of IUCN.
The future goals of the Red List Programme are to continue development and support of the Specialist Group network with emphasis on taxa that are currently poorly represented on the IUCN Red List. There will also be an emphasis on the complete assessment and reassessment of selected groups of taxa. Such assessments of complete taxonomic groups help avoid the current situation where Least Concern species are not reported, making analysis of the Red List results difficult. This will include groups that have already been completely assessed such as birds, mammals, amphibians, cycads, and conifers as well as target groups that will be assessed for the first time using a similar approach to the GAA or GMA (as described above). These large-scale assessments include reptiles (c. 8,000 species, assessment initiated in 2004 as described above), freshwater fishes (c. 10,000 species, initiated in 2003 as described above), sharks, rays and chimeras (c. 1,000 species, to be completed in 2006), and freshwater molluscs (c. 5,000 species, initiated in 2004). Furthermore, a preliminary assessment of all plant species is also planned for 2010 as part of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (see above). These complete assessments will allow the identification of global patterns such as centres of threatened species, non-threatened species, species richness, and endemism. Re-assessments will enable the identification of trends in the status of species over time.
Red List Indices (as described in Section 4) will continue to be calculated for birds and amphibians and will soon include mammals and other groups where possible. However, this becomes impractical when considering regular and complete assessments of some of the large and less wellstudied groups such as fungi (c. 70,000 species), plants (c. 280,000 species) and insects (c. 950,000 species). One way of addressing this problem is to use a random or representative sample of species from all major taxonomic groups. A working group under the IUCN/SSC Red List Committee is currently developing such a sampled approach (the ‘Global Sentinel’ project). This project will repeatedly assess the status of a sample of species from all major taxonomic groups. The Red List Index generated will provide information on changes in extinction risk of all species, major taxonomic groups, biogeographic regions, and systems (marine, freshwater and terrestrial). This will provide the general public and decision makers with a global index of extinction risk which will be much more representative of all biodiversity.
Finally, the Red List Consortium aims to continue the development of Red List web sites to ensure that the information on the status of species is readily available in a suitable form such that all those involved in conservation planning can use it. Each annual update of the IUCN Red List web site includes the addition of new features to make the system more user-friendly and the data more accessible. A fundamental aspect to the data collection process and to making the information available to all potential users is the ongoing development of the underlying Species Information Service (SIS; for further details see http://www.iucn.org/themes/ssc/programs/sisindex.htm). The ultimate aim is to provide a web-enabled user-friendly and interactive platform where the latest information on the status of the world's species, including geo-spatial information, can easily be accessed and analysed.