Saving the World's Terrestrial Megafauna.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List has led efforts to monitor and conserve populations of animals, plants, and fungi since 1964. However, recent research suggests the list is not effectively accounting for the consequences of rapid man-made climate change. The Korean Water Deer (Hydropotes inermis argyropus) is classified as vulnerable internationally, but in South Korea it is widely considered a pest, with the government offering bounties to cull what are considered high numbers. Both the IUCN’s classification and the Korean government’s approach to Korean Water Deer fail to consider the possibility of a rapid decline in numbers due to rapidly spreading biosecurity threats facilitated by rapid climate change. This paper describes the current status of Korean Water Deer, the biosecurity threats the population faces, and potential solutions to protect the population. This case study of Korean Water Deer will also add to evidence that the IUCN’s classification system is failing to accurately describe the potential for rapid collapse of mammal populations due to biosecurity threats facilitated by climate change.

Chapter 13 - Prosimians

About 50 species of elasmobranchs and 460 species of bony fishes are currently known from the Arabian Gulf. They are key components of the region’s marine biodiversity, contributing to ecosystem functions and services, such as food security. Addressing natural and human-induced threats and the absence of adequate species-specific information, bony fishes were recently assessed against the criteria of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, which assigns species to extinction risk categories, based on objectively verifiable criteria. Two Red List Assessment workshops were held by the IUCN Global Marine Species Assessment team, Qatar University, and Qatar Museums, funded by the Qatar National Research Fund. Regional and international experts on fish taxonomy, fisheries, and Arabian Gulf environmental issues participated. Preliminary results indicate that 7% of the fish species, including several of high commercial importance, were at an elevated risk of extinction (5% Vulnerable and 2% Endangered); another 2% were designated as Near Threatened. Most species (71%) were listed as Least Concern. For 20% of all species adequate information was unavailable and they were listed as Data Deficient. Naturally stressful environmental conditions such as high salinities and temperature extremes prevail in the semi-enclosed, shallow Gulf. In addition, degradation resulting from urban and industrial developments, pollution, and unsustainable fisheries is increasing rapidly, aggravated by climate change. The findings of the regional Red List Assessment are attributed to these multiple stressors. While in general, overfishing is the dominant threat, coral-associated species are mainly impacted by habitat loss. Fish assemblages recovered from major oil spills within a few years, but climate change resulted in permanent shifts in species compositions. The high percentage of Data Deficient species underlines the need for more research. Improved scientific knowledge will be the basis for region-specific conservation measures. Most international scientists participating in the assessments have a museum background, underlining the importance of Natural History Museums in research and conservation. There is an urgent need to establish regional research collections, which will provide Qatar with prime sources of objectively verifiable, species-specific information for management and conservation purposes.

Marine and freshwater mammals are increasingly threatened due to human activity. To improve conservation practice, decisions should be informed by the available evidence on the effectiveness of conservation actions. Using a systematically collated database of studies that test the effectiveness of actions to conserve marine and freshwater mammals, we investigated the gaps and biases in the available scientific evidence base. While there is a growing evidence base covering actions to address key threats (e.g. fisheries and bycatch) to marine and freshwater mammal populations, we identified large geographic and taxonomic biases. There was no relationship between the number of studies and marine mammal species per ecoregion and we found biases towards coastal areas of the Global North, with many regions and species having little or no evidence available. The number of studies per species did not correlate with (1) the threat level, (2) evolutionary distinctiveness or (3) the public ‘popularity’ of the study species. We also found a mismatch between actions tested and the actions suggested as needed in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Several of these gaps and biases likely reflect the feasibility of researching marine mammal populations; many species can be difficult to access, with limited baseline information on populations and threats, and testing actions can require costly long‐term monitoring. Prioritizing the most cost‐effective conservation strategies for marine and freshwater mammal species will require a comprehensive evidence base on the effects of actions. Continuing to build the necessary baseline data, and focusing future research and funding towards the priority gaps identified in this study will be important to deliver this target.

The large terrestrial carnivore guild in Quaternary Southeast Asia

Societal Impact StatementConserving trees is fundamental to maintaining forests, which are home to about half of the global biodiversity and provide unmeasurable benefits to people. Colombia has 5868 known species of trees, 1148 of which are endemic to the country. Unfortunately, 45% of the endemic trees of Colombia are threatened with extinction, and therefore, the ecosystem services they provide might be in jeopardy. This study represents an important contribution to conservation planning for the endemic trees of a megadiverse country and highlights critical considerations for their conservation.Summary Colombia has a very rich tree flora and high levels of tree endemism. As a contribution to the “Global Tree Assessment”, we assessed 860 species to complete the Red List of the 1148 endemic trees of the country. The information is being used to support spatial conservation planning as Key Biodiversity Areas identification. To categorize the species according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List guidelines, we used geographic occurrences obtained from herbarium specimens. We carried out detailed analysis of habitat quantity and quality (using forest cover and human footprint maps) and documented anthropogenic threats and conservation actions. Almost half (45%) of the endemic trees were categorized as threatened. Most species had small distributions (with an extent of occurrence of less than 40,000 km2). Endemic tree occurrences were more common in the Andes and Magdalena regions, which have very high human footprint and consequently a large proportion of threatened species. The major threat to endemic trees was habitat destruction, due mainly to deforestation for livestock and crops. Many endemic trees were present in protected areas (65%), but threatened and non‐threatened species had low coverage with habitat protection, and many of their populations persist in disturbed habitats. Colombia has hundreds of threatened endemic trees, most of them in global biodiversity hotspots, with very few proactive conservation actions. It is urgent to increase the coverage of endemic tree populations in area‐based conservation strategies and to complement this with ex situ and other conservation actions.

Marine turtles have complex life histories and make expansive migrations over their long lifetimes, often through multiple states’ exclusive economic zones and areas beyond national jurisdiction. This complexity makes it difficult to “know” marine turtles and presents jurisdictional mismatches for existing state and inter‐state bodies that govern turtles. This paper examines how scientists tasked with assessing marine turtles for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species have used their scientific expertise to make marine turtles legible for governance, including by rescaling the Red List assessment process to include both global and regional levels. We find that in this rescaling project, marine turtle scientists have created two new objects of governance: spatially bounded “regional management units” and the scientists themselves, who have begun to sort themselves and their work around the new spatial units in the interest of generating progress in ocean conservation. More broadly, the story of the IUCN Red List process for sea turtles turns attention to the work of science and scientists in making oceans resources legible, and therefore governable, even when they defy the boundaries of state‐led regulatory bodies or jurisdictional spaces.

Summary: Tracking change in species extinction risk provides an effective metric with which to follow trends in biodiversity. One of the most widely applied classifications of the relative risk of extinction of species is the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. This chapter explores the prospect of taking the Red List Index (RLI), a global indicator of change in species extinction risk, and applying it at the regional and national level. It discusses how data coverage and data integrity are important factors in extending the utility of this index. The chapter looks in detail at the National Red List process in two countries, Venezuela and South Africa, and looks at how lessons may be learned from their experiences, and applied to other countries. It also sets out the potential strengths and limitations to using extinction risk indices to monitor change in biodiversity. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

<title>Abstract</title> Many elasmobranch species face increasing pressures from overfishing, habitat degradation, and coastal development, yet their movement ecology remains poorly understood. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or drones offer a non-invasive method to study the distribution and habitat use of species frequenting inshore areas. Scalloped hammerhead sharks ( <italic>Sphyrna lewini</italic> ), listed as Critically Endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, have experienced global population declines prompting the need for research that identifies key habitats, including nursery and aggregation sites. This study analysed archived footage from the Queensland SharkSmart drone program at nine beaches in southeast Queensland between September 2020 and December 2024. The frequency of scalloped hammerhead sightings was quantified, along with the influence of environmental, biotic, and operational variables on sightability. Ninety sightings were recorded, primarily between April and June. Sightings were significantly influenced by turbidity, presence of other fauna, time of day, month, and location. Aggregations of up to 80 juvenile sharks (estimated mean total length 109 cm ± 25 cm) were observed at Burleigh Beach, with additional sightings at Noosa Main Beach. These findings provide new insights into the species’ spatial ecology in southeast Queensland, Australia and demonstrate the value of drone monitoring for conservation and spatial management.

Parasite conservation now: turning knowledge into action.

SummaryIn many developing countries, people rely on natural resources for subsistence and cash income. The trade ban on species listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List may be counter-productive, as increasing the rarity and thus price of these species acts as a stimulus to illegal markets rather than a deterrent. Since illegal markets cannot have legal property rights, there is no basis for any form of sustainable harvesting based on property rights. The Malagsy radiated tortoise (Astrochelys radiata) is an example of a species that is threatened by domestic and international trade; legalizing international trade could, under certain circumstances, provide financial incentives that might effectively reduce the domestic trade and subsistence harvest of this animal. This paper argues this critically-endangered species may be more effectively conserved by assigning trading rights to local communities, rather than demanding a trade ban that cannot be enforced successfully.

Systematic conservation planning aims to identify comprehensive protected area networks that together will minimize biodiversity loss. Importantly, conservation planners seek to determine where to allocate limited resources first, particularly given the uneven spread of, and threats to, biodiversity. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species incorporates data not only on threats to species, but also on species distributions and ecological requirements. These temporal and spatial attributes, when combined with other datasets, have proven useful for determining the most urgent priority areas for conserving biodiversity, from the global level down to the scale of individual sites. Although many challenges remain, the increasing reliability and comprehensiveness of the IUCN Red List suggests that its role as a source of biodiversity data in systematic conservation planning is certain to expand dramatically.

Red wood ants (RWAs) are a group of keystone species widespread in temperate and boreal forests of the Northern Hemisphere. Despite this, there is increasing evidence of local declines and extinctions. We reviewed the current protection status of RWAs throughout Europe and their International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) threat classification. Only some RWA species have been assessed at a global scale, and not all national red lists of the countries where RWAs are present include these species. Different assessment criteria, inventory approaches, and risk categories are used in different countries, and data deficiency is frequent. Legislative protection is even more complex, with some countries protecting RWAs implicitly together with the wildlife fauna and others explicitly protecting the whole group or particular species. This complexity often occurs within countries, for example, in Italy, where, outside of the Alps, only the introduced species are protected, whereas the native species, which are in decline, are not. Therefore, an international, coordinated framework is needed for the protection of RWAs. This first requires that the conservation target should be defined. Due to the similar morphology, complex taxonomy, and frequent hybridization, protecting the entire RWA group seems a more efficient strategy than protecting single species, although with a distinction between autochthonous and introduced species. Second, an update of the current distribution of RWA species is needed throughout Europe. Third, a protection law cannot be effective without the collaboration of forest managers, whose activity influences RWA habitat. Finally, RWA mounds offer a peculiar microhabitat, hosting a multitude of taxa, some of which are obligate myrmecophilous species on the IUCN Red List. Therefore, RWAs’ role as umbrella species could facilitate their protection if they are considered not only as target species but also as providers of species‐rich microhabitats.

Despite multilateral global efforts to improve biodiversity conservation, the African biodiversity range is increasingly facing existential threats. The Red List of Threatened Species (RLTS) adopted by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to protect relevant species is not effectively implemented in many African countries. In this study, we identify the legal mechanisms to protect biodiversity at regional and national levels, focusing specifically on Liberia and Nigeria. We also identify the specific drivers of biodiversity loss in sub-Saharan Africa as a framework for formulating context-specific laws. The study highlights the importance of prioritising legislative action reflecting the IUCN’s red list of threatened species and the need to develop local solutions to more contextual challenges. The added relevance of creating specialised agencies to address the crisis of biodiversity loss is also discussed.

This chapter analyses the law concerning the protection of the narwhal whale in the Arctic region. It is based on the premise that a great (and steadily growing) number of existing multilateral and bilateral agreements (be they regional or of broader geographical or thematic scope), paradoxically, do not provide sufficient protection for some species such as the narwhal, as they either fall into the loopholes of the Conventions, or the provisions of these Conventions are not sufficiently implemented by State Parties.