Regional IUCN Red Listing: the Process as Applied to Birds in the United Kingdom

Abstract

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has developed guidelines that enable the assessment of extinction risk at a regional scale. We used these guidelines to assess the extinction risk of birds in the United Kingdom for comparison with an existing assessment of conservation status. Sixty-four species were categorized as regionally threatened, of which 12 were critically endangered. The categorizations of the 223 species assessed agreed broadly with those from the existing U.K. system, which considers more than extinction risk, thus giving a more complete assessment of conservation status. There was, however, a tendency for the IUCN process to give higher risk status to edge-of-range species (some of which are relatively recent colonists considered of comparatively low conservation concern) and low status to those that have declined substantially but remain common (such as many farmland birds, the focus of considerable conservation effort in the United Kingdom). The final red list depended heavily on the subjective decisions made during the assessment process. An alternative interpretation of the guidelines could have resulted in as many as 19 or as few as 6 species being listed as critically endangered. We recommend the revision of the IUCN guidelines to reduce this subjectivity, in particular with respect to the effect of extralimital populations on the likelihood of regional extinction, and hence the potential for variation in the manner of application between regional red-list assessors. Preventing extinction does not have to be the principal driving force behind conservation action at a regional scale if the continuance of a species is safeguarded in other regions.Listado Rojo IUCN Regional: el Proceso Aplicado a Aves en el Reino Unido Resumen: La Unión Mundial para la Conservación (IUCN) ha desarrollado directrices que permiten la evaluación del riesgo de extinción a escala regional. Utilizamos estas directrices para evaluar el riesgo de extinción de aves en el Reino Unido para compararlas con una evaluación existente del estatus de conservación. Sesenta y cuatro especies fueron catalogadas como amenazadas regionalmente, de las cuales 12 estaban en peligro crítico. Las categorizaciones de las 223 especies evaluadas en su mayoría coincidieron con las del sistema existente, que considera más que el riesgo de extinción, por lo tanto proporciona una evaluación más completa del estatus de conservación. Sin embargo, en el proceso de la IUCN hubo una tendencia a proporcionar mayor estatus de riesgo a especies en el borde de su distribución (algunas de las cuales son colonizadoras relativamente recientes consideradas comparativamente como de bajo interés de conservación) y menor estatus a aquellas que han declinado sustancialmente pero permanecen comunes (como muchas aves de zonas agrícolas, el foco de atención de muchos esfuerzos de conservación en el Reino Unido). La ‡ 1558Regional IUCN Red Listing Eaton et al. lista roja final dependió en buena medida de las decisiones subjetivas que se tomaron durante el proc...

AS WE SEE IT:Harmonization of Red Lists in Europe: some lessons learned in the Netherlands when applying the new IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria version 3.1.

“…It is suggested that experts involved in the assessments were too strict in the application of the new IUCN C&C and did not sufficiently correct their assessments based on expert opinion, which may in a number of cases have resulted in a higher threat category on the IUCNcriteria based Red List. This is contrary to Eaton et al (2005), who concluded in a comparative study of a national Red List for birds in the UK using the UK system and the new IUCN C&C, that the IUCN Red List depended heavily upon the subjective decisions made during the assessment process. Eaton et al (2005) also concluded that in their study the total number of 223 red listed birds on the IUCN Red List broadly agreed with the UK Red List, but that there was also (and this is also true for the Dutch experience with birds and butterflies) a tendency for the IUCN process to give higher risk status to edge of the range species and low status to those that have declined but remain common.…”

“…The different outcomes of the IUCN Red Lists compared with the Red Lists using the national system found in the Dutch pilot and in the UK study by Eaton et al (2005) may have important consequences for overall national nature conservation priorities. Although more and more European countries have now started using the new IUCN C&C (for example Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, the Netherlands), a substantial number of countries, among them the Netherlands, still make use of their own criteria or of modified IUCN criteria for national policy purposes.…”

Effectiveness of “Тhe IUCN red list of threatened species” application on a regional scale: current state of the “Red Data books” of Russia

“…It could be useful for the relatively small well-studied countries or for some well-known taxa, but the assessment of big territories or scarcely studied groups always result in difficulties with its use. So, the assessment of biodiversity of Finland (Juslén et al, 2013), birds of Britain (Eaton et al, 2005) or Switzerland (Keller et al, 2005), butterflies of Flanders (Maes et al, 2012), re-assessment of 163 rare species of Asian countries (Millner-Gulland et al, 2006) did not provoke serious disagreements with IUCN schemes. On the contrary, comparison of the IUCN list with US Endangered species act (Harris et al, 2013) or with the red lists of Brazil, Colombia, China and the Philippines (Brito et al, 2010) revealed numerous mismatches.…”

Determination of national conservation responsibilities for species conservation in regions with multiple political jurisdictions

“…Usually, the resulting threat status for a particular species is also taken as a measurement for conservation priorities, even though red lists were not designed for that purpose. However, red lists may at best be a suboptimal tool for setting conservation priorities in a country or region as the threat status does not always reflect actual conservation needs (Gärdenfors 2000(Gärdenfors , 2001Mehlman et al 2004;Eaton et al 2005). That is especially true from an international point of view, from which it is clearly more desirable to focus national conservation efforts on the near-endemics centred in the respective country (Schnittler and Günther 1999).…”