‘IUCN Green List of species’: A new way to measure conservation success

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the world’s most widely used information source on a species’ conservation status, may soon get a makeover. The Red List measures the decline in populations of plants and animals, and classifies species into groups on the basis of their extinction risk. But what if, despite years of conservation efforts, the threat category of a species doesn’t budge. Does this mean that conservation efforts have been unsuccessful? Does it mean that the species is not recovering? Scientists have now proposed a framework for a new “Green List of species to change the way we measure conservation success. The framework, published in the journal Conservation Biology, shifts the focus from trying to pull a species back from the brink of extinction, as the Red List currently does, to finding ways of helping species recover to their maximum potential. “Successful conservation of a species is not just about avoiding extinction; we want species to move towards ‘fully recovered’ which means healthy populations across its former range, interacting with its ecosystem in ways it should be,” said co-author Barney Long, director of species conservation at the NGO Global Wildlife Conservation. “Of course not all species can recover to their former range and populations but we should be trying to recover and not ‘save’ species where possible.” Sumatran rhino in Way Kambas, Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler for Mongabay.com. The framework starts by defining what a “fully recovered species” looks like. It then lays down four metrics that quantify…

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