This conservation category is one of nine IUCN threat assessment categories for species to indicate their risk of global extinction. The categories range from 'extinct' (EX) at one end of the spectrum, to 'least concern' (LC) at the other. The categories 'data deficient' and 'not evaluated' (NE) are not on the spectrum, because they indicate species that have not been reviewed enough to assign to a category.[4]
The category of 'not evaluated' does not indicate that a species is not at risk of extinction, but simply that the species has not yet been studied for any risk to be quantified and published. The IUCN advises that species categorised as 'not evaluated' "...should not be treated as if they were non-threatened. It may be appropriate ... to give them the same degree of attention as threatened taxa, at least until their status can be assessed."[4]:7[5]:76
By 2015, the IUCN had assessed and allocated conservation statuses to over 76,000 species worldwide. From these it had categorised some 24,000 species as globally threatened at one conservation level or another. However, despite estimates varying widely as to the number of species existing on Earth (ranging from 3 million up to 30 million), this means the IUCN's 'not evaluated' (NE) category is by far the largest of all nine extinction risk categories.[6]
Other applications
The global IUCN assessment and categorization process has subsequently been applied at country and sometimes at regional levels as the basis for assessing conservation threats and for establishing individual Red Data lists for those areas.[7][8][9][10][11][12]
↑ "Frequently Asked Questions". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Archived from the original on 1 May 2024. Retrieved 6 May 2024. If a species is not on the website, it is treated as Not Evaluated.
1 Pre-2001 categories and subcategories shown in italics.
Related Research Articles
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological species. A series of Regional Red Lists, which assess the risk of extinction to species within a political management unit, are also produced by countries and organizations.
Conservation status is a measure used in conservation biology to assess an ecoregion's degree of habitat alteration and habitat conservation. It is used to set priorities for conservation.
A threatened species is any species which is vulnerable to extinction in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of critical depensation, a mathematical measure of biomass related to population growth rate. This quantitative metric is one method of evaluating the degree of endangerment without direct reference to human activity.
The conservation status of a group of organisms indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Many factors are taken into account when assessing conservation status: not simply the number of individuals remaining, but the overall increase or decrease in the population over time, breeding success rates, and known threats. Various systems of conservation status are in use at international, multi-country, national and local levels, as well as for consumer use such as sustainable seafood advisory lists and certification. The two international systems are by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. They do not qualify as threatened, near threatened, or conservation dependent.
A conservation-dependent species is a species which has been categorized as "Conservation Dependent" ("LR/cd") by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), as dependent on conservation efforts to prevent it from becoming endangered. A species that is reliant on the conservation attempts of humans is considered conservation dependent. Such species must be the focus of a continuing species-specific and/or habitat-specific conservation program, the cessation of which would result in the species qualifying for one of the threatened categories within a period of five years. The determination of status is constantly monitored and can change.
A near-threatened species is a species which has been categorized as "Near Threatened" (NT) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as that may be vulnerable to endangerment in the near future, but it does not currently qualify for the threatened status.
An endangered species recovery plan, also known as a species recovery plan, species action plan, species conservation action, or simply recovery plan, is a document describing the current status, threats and intended methods for increasing rare and endangered species population sizes. Recovery plans act as a foundation from which to build a conservation effort to preserve animals which are under threat of extinction. More than 320 species have died out and the world is continuing a rate of 1 species becoming extinct every two years. Climate change is also linked to several issues relating to extinct species and animals' quality of life.
An IUCN Red List Critically Endangered species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of the 157,190 species currently on the IUCN Red List, 9,760 of those are listed as Critically Endangered, with 1,302 being possibly extinct and 67 possibly extinct in the wild.
Wendy Foden is a conservation biologist, best known for her work on climate change impacts on biodiversity loss.
The Threatened Species Protection Act 1995, is an act of the Parliament of Tasmania that provides the statute relating to conservation of flora and fauna. Its long title is An Act to provide for the protection and management of threatened native flora and fauna and to enable and promote the conservation of native flora and fauna. It received the royal assent on 14 November 1995.
A species that is extinct in the wild (EW) is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as only consisting of living members kept in captivity or as a naturalized population outside its historic range. Classification requires exhaustive surveys conducted within the species' known habitat with consideration given to seasonality, time of day, and life cycle. Once a species is classified as EW, the only way for it to be downgraded is through reintroduction.
The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada is an independent committee of wildlife experts and scientists whose "raison d'être is to identify species at risk" in Canada. It designates the conservation status of wild species.
A Regional Red List is a report of the threatened status of species within a certain country or region. It is based on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, an inventory of the conservation status of species on a global scale. Regional Red Lists assess the risk of extinction to species within a political management unit and therefore may feed directly into national and regional planning. This project is coordinated by the Zoological Society of London, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and partners in national governments, universities and organizations throughout the world.
The New Zealand Threat Classification System is used by the Department of Conservation to assess conservation priorities of species in New Zealand.
An ecosystem, short for ecological system, is defined as a collection of interacting organisms within a biophysical environment. Ecosystems are never static, and are continually subject to stabilizing and destabilizing processes alike. Stabilizing processes allow ecosystems to adequately respond to destabilizing changes, or pertubations, in ecological conditions, or to recover from degradation induced by them: yet, if destabilizing processes become strong enough or fast enough to cross a critical threshold within that ecosystem, often described as an ecological 'tipping point', then an ecosystem collapse. occurs.
The Centro Nacional de Conservação da Flora (CNCFlora) is a Brazilian nonprofit organization that determines extinction risk of various Brazilian plant species. It intends to create a Red List of plants – a reference work of assessments of the state of conservation of the native plant species of Brazil. It is hosted at the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden. It partnered with the Rafael Loyola Conservation Biogeography Lab, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Botanic Gardens Conservation International. It is supported financially by the Global Environment Facility, the Brazilian Ministry of Environment, as well as the Fundo Brasileiro para Biodiversidade and Associação Instituto V5.
Endangered species, as classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), are species which have been categorized as very likely to become extinct in their known native ranges in the near future. On the IUCN Red List, endangered is the second-most severe conservation status for wild populations in the IUCN's schema after critically endangered. In 2012, the IUCN Red List featured 3,079 animal and 2,655 plant species as endangered worldwide. The figures for 1998 were 1,102 and 1,197 respectively.
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