TY - JOUR

T1 - Establishing IUCN Red List criteria for threatened ecosystems

AU - Rodríguez, Jon Paul

AU - Rodríguez-Clark, Kathryn M

AU - Baillie, Jonathan E M

AU - Ash, Neville

AU - Benson, John

AU - Boucher, Timothy

AU - Brown, Claire

AU - Burgess, Neil D

AU - Collen, Ben

AU - Jennings, Michael

AU - Keith, David A

AU - Nicholson, Emily

AU - Revenga, Carmen

AU - Reyers, Belinda

AU - Rouget, Mathieu

AU - Smith, Tammy

AU - Spalding, Mark

AU - Taber, Andrew

AU - Walpole, Matt

AU - Zager, Irene

AU - Zamin, Tara

N1 - ©2010 Society for Conservation Biology.

PY - 2011

Y1 - 2011

N2 - 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 criteria for assessing extinction risk that explicitly separate risk assessment from priority setting. At the IV World Conservation Congress in 2008, the process began to develop and implement comparable global standards for ecosystems. A working group established by the IUCN has begun formulating a system of quantitative categories 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 ecosystem status; 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 system will 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 requirements and the hypothesis that ecosystem risk is a function of the risk of its component species, we propose a set of four criteria: recent declines in distribution or ecological function, historical total loss in distribution or ecological function, small distribution combined with decline, or very small distribution. Most work has focused on terrestrial ecosystems, but comparable thresholds and criteria for freshwater and marine ecosystems are also needed. These are the first steps in an international consultation process that will lead to a unified proposal to be presented at the next World Conservation Congress in 2012.

AB - 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 criteria for assessing extinction risk that explicitly separate risk assessment from priority setting. At the IV World Conservation Congress in 2008, the process began to develop and implement comparable global standards for ecosystems. A working group established by the IUCN has begun formulating a system of quantitative categories 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 ecosystem status; 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 system will 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 requirements and the hypothesis that ecosystem risk is a function of the risk of its component species, we propose a set of four criteria: recent declines in distribution or ecological function, historical total loss in distribution or ecological function, small distribution combined with decline, or very small distribution. Most work has focused on terrestrial ecosystems, but comparable thresholds and criteria for freshwater and marine ecosystems are also needed. These are the first steps in an international consultation process that will lead to a unified proposal to be presented at the next World Conservation Congress in 2012.

KW - Biodiversity

KW - Congresses as Topic

KW - Conservation of Natural Resources

KW - Ecosystem

KW - Endangered Species

KW - Extinction, Biological

KW - Risk Assessment

U2 - 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01598.x

DO - 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01598.x

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 21054525

VL - 25

SP - 21

EP - 29

JO - Conservation Biology

JF - Conservation Biology

SN - 0888-8892

IS - 1

ER -