IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Rodriguez, J.P.; Rodriquez, K.M.; Baillie, J.E.M.; Ash, N.; Benson, J.; Boucher, T.; Brown, C.; Burgess, N.D.; Collen, B.; Jennings, M.; Keith, D.A.; Nicholson, E.; Revenga, C.; Reyers, B.; Rouget, M.; Smith, T.; Spalding, M.; Taber, A.; Walpole, M.; Zager, I.; Zamin, T. | |
| Establishing IUCN Red List Criteria for Threatened Ecosystems | |
| 2011 Conservation Biology (25): 21-29 | |
The potential for conservation of individual species has been greatly advanced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) development of objective, repeatable, and transparent criteriafor assessing extinction risk that explicitly separate risk assessment from priority setting. At the IV WorldConservation Congress in 2008, the process began to develop and implement comparable global standardsfor ecosystems. A working group established by the IUCN has begun formulating a system of quantitativecategories and criteria, analogous to those used for species, for assigning levels of threat to ecosystems at local,regional, and global levels. A final system will require definitions of ecosystems; quantification of ecosystemstatus; identification of the stages of degradation and loss of ecosystems; proxy measures of risk (criteria);classification thresholds for these criteria; and standardized methods for performing assessments. The systemwill need to reflect the degree and rate of change in an ecosystem's extent, composition, structure, and function,and have its conceptual roots in ecological theory and empirical research. On the basis of these requirementsand the hypothesis that ecosystem risk is a function of the risk of its component species, we propose a set of fourcriteria: recent declines in distribution or ecological function, historical total loss in distribution or ecologicalfunction, small distribution combined with decline, or very small distribution. Most work has focused onterrestrial ecosystems, but comparable thresholds and criteria for freshwater and marine ecosystems are alsoneeded. These are the first steps in an international consultation process that will lead to a unified proposalto be presented at the next World Conservation Congress in 2012. |
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