IUCN Red List
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Conservation status |
|---|
| the risk of extinction |
| Extinction |
| Threatened |
| Lower risk |
|
Conservation Dependent |
| See also |
|
World Conservation Union |
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (also known as the "IUCN Red List" and "Red Data List"), created in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species and can be found here. It is maintained by the World Conservation Union.
The IUCN Red List is set upon precise criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies. These criteria are relevant to all species and all regions of the world. The aim is to convey the urgency of conservation issues to the public and policy makers, as well as help the international community to try to reduce species extinction.
Major species assessors include BirdLife International, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, and many Specialist Groups within the IUCN's Species Survival Commission (SSC). Collectively, assessments by these organizations and groups account for nearly half the species on the Red List.
The IUCN Red List is often recognised as the most authoritative guide to the status of biological diversity.
The IUCN aims to have the category of every species re-evaluated every five years if possible, or at least every ten years. This is done in a peer reviewed manner through IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) Specialist Groups, which are Red List Authorities responsible for a species, group of species or specific geographic area, or in the case of BirdLife International, an entire class (Aves).[1] There are over 7000 extant species in the 2006 Red List which have not had their category evaluated since 1996.
Contents |
[edit] Current release
The latest update is the 2006 Red List, released on 4 May 2006. It evaluates 40,168 species as a whole, plus an additional 2,160 subspecies, varieties, aquatic stocks, and subpopulations.
From the species evaluated as a whole, 16,118 are considered threatened. Of these, 7,725 are animals, 8,390 are plants, and three are lichen and mushrooms.
This release lists 784 species extinctions recorded since 1500 CE, unchanged from the 2004 release. This is an increase of 18 from the 766 listed as of 2000. Each year a small number of 'extinct' species are either rediscovered, becoming Lazarus species, or are reclassified as 'data deficient'. In 2002, the extinction list dropped to 759 species, but has been rising ever since.
[edit] Categories
Species are classified in nine groups, set through criteria such as rate of decline, population size, area of geographic distribution, and degree of population and distribution fragmentation.
- Extinct (EX)
- Extinct in the Wild (EW)
- Critically Endangered (CR)
- Endangered (EN)
- Vulnerable (VU)
- Near Threatened (NT)
- Least Concern (LC)
- Data Deficient (DD)
- Not Evaluated (NE)
When discussing the IUCN Red List, the official term "threatened" is a grouping of three categories: Critically Endangered, Endangered, and Vulnerable.
[edit] 1994 Categories and Criteria
The older 1994 has only a single "Lower Risk" category which contained three subcategories:
- Conservation Dependent (LR/cd)
- Near Threatened (LR/nt)
- Least Concern (LR/lc)
In the 2001 system, Near Threatened and Least Concern have now become their own categories, while Conservation Dependent is no longer used and has been merged into Near Threatened.
[edit] Possibly Extinct
The additional category of Possibly Extinct (PE)[2] is used by Birdlife International, the Red List Authority for birds for the IUCN Red List[3]. Birdlife International has recommended PE become an official category. BirdLife International has not stated whether a "Possibly Extinct in the Wild" category should also be added, although it is mentioned that Spix's Macaw has this status. "Possibly Extinct" can be considered a subcategory of "Critically Endangered".
[edit] See also
- Conservation status
- List of endangered species
- Wildlife conservation
- World Conservation Union (IUCN)
- African Wild Dog Conservancy
[edit] References
- IUCN, 2006. Summary Statistics for Globally Threatened Species (1, 3a, 3b). Retrieved 5 May 2006.
- IUCN, 1994. Categories & Criteria (version 2.3). Retrieved February 12, 2005.
- IUCN, 2001. Categories & Criteria (version 3.1). Retrieved February 12, 2005.
- Rodrigues, A.S.L., Pilgrim, J.D., Lamoreux, J.F., Hoffmann, M. & Brooks, T.M. 2006. The value of the IUCN Red List for conservation. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 21(2): 71-76.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Establishment of Red List Authorities. The IUCN SSC Red List Programme. Retrieved on November 12, 2006.
- ^ S. H. M. Butchart, et al. Going or gone: defining 'Possibly Extinct' species to give a truer picture of recent extinctions (pdf). Bull. B.O.C. 2006 126A.
- ^ Birds on the IUCN Red List. BirdLife International. Retrieved on January 26, 2007.
