Existing practice disallows wider participation and use of researcher knowledge, defeating purpose of conservation
Woolly-necked storks were erroneously elevated to the vulnerable category in the IUCN Red List under the assumption that farming was harming this species. Photo: KS Gopi Sundar Scientists and conservationists across the world have expressed concerns that the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species is outdated and unreliable.
Formed in 1964, the Red List — an extinction risk assessment tool — serves as the most extensive and credible listing of species’ extinction risk and acts as a significant resource for species conservation.
Even though the Red List has been “instrumental” in improving species conservation status, 25 scientists have expressed multiple concerns about the Red List affecting conservation efforts, especially in the Global South, in a pre-print paper.
The paper is the first time that scientists, researchers and conservationists across diverse taxa have critically reviewed the flaws in the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) system of assigning species status.
The collaborators have provided several suggestions to remove systemic blockages and improve the Red List’s reliability towards the betterment of species conservation, said KS Gopi Sundar, one of the authors of the paper. Sundar is the co-chair of the IUCN SSC Stork, Ibis and Spoonbill Specialist Group, and a scientist working on the conservation of several large waterbirds for over two decades.
There are only 150,000 species assessed by IUCN, the manuscript stated, which contributes less than 10 per cent of the two million described species in the world. The percentage gets skewed dramatically after considering the recent global biodiversity estimates, which suggest animal species exceeding 50 million.
While the Red List has about 42,100 species threatened, the IPBES, on the other hand, states that more than a million species are facing potential extinction threats.
Furthermore, more undescribed species may face extinction threats, and many classified species may already be threatened, but IUCN-recommended reassessments every 10 years have not been completed.
“For instance, in the marine realm, over 40 per cent of top-fished species have outdated assessments. Overall, 28 per cent of assessments have already been declared outdated, potentially undermining the long-term use of the Red List,” the paper noted.
Ruben Dario Palacio, a conservation biologist from Colombia, came up with the idea to openly address the issue in an X (formerly Twitter) post in January 2023.
“I’m tired of the hegemony of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. At this point, I think it's actually hampering biodiversity conservation and research,” he wrote.
In a series of threads that followed, he said categories and criteria are over 30 years old and not evolved gravely. The systems were implemented without technological tools such as geographic information system and remote sensing, and simple assumptions were used without inferences, among others, he highlighted.
He shared that threatened species don’t receive adequate funding or it becomes challenging to seek the same for a species that is not threatened. Unless the species is categorised as endangered or critical, finding funding becomes difficult and even vulnerable category is not reason enough to seek funding for conservation, doing more harm than good as a result, he added.
As per the IUCN, species are classified into nine categories of extinction risks: Not evaluated, data deficient, least concern, near threatened, vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild and extinct.
He emphasised the need for conservation of locally endangered populations, as species extinction occurs one population at a time.
Palacio urged the funders to not over-rely on the IUCN Red List and accept wider independent evidence for funding the species. He further alleged the IUCN Red List specialist groups would not accept feedback despite showing evidence and they lack transparency.
Palacio then suggested the need for version 2.0 of the Red List, seeking to overhaul the systems entirely.
There are several examples highlighting the need for a new version of the Red List. Woolly-necked storks were erroneously elevated to the vulnerable category using the assumption that farming was harming this species. However, scientists across south and southeast Asia showed the birds to be faring very well, with the majority of their populations thriving in farmlands. In Myanmar, more woolly-necked storks were seen on farmlands compared to protected forests.
The Greater adjutant stork has recently been downlisted to least concern from endangered despite submissions from several scientists that this is incorrect. The species status assignment to this species is a strong example of the existing hegemony in some parts of the IUCN SSC, leading to incorrect Red List statuses for species.
Sundar said that the manuscript, not yet published, has encouraged an outcome of careful discussions among various scientists and researchers globally who first shared similar experiences before leading to the development of the document that aims to assist in the improvement of the IUCN system of assigning species status.
“The idea is not to discard or remove the system, but to remove the faults and strengthen it,” he said.
Sharing his evaluation of the status assignment of storks on the IUCN Red List, he said, “There is no information on many stork species even of basic biology, and these species should logically be assigned as ‘Data Deficient’. However, in its wisdom, which is not easily explicable, BirdLife International — the organisation that currently manages status assignments for all the birds of the world — has provided confident statuses for all stork species,” he said.
Sundar said that one of the major problems with these assignments is the assumption that all farmlands are poor stork habitats. While farming is a threat to some stork species in some regions, it is not the case in India and many African countries. The assignment of stork statuses has been due to the predicament a couple of species face and the assumption that all farmlands are affecting all stork species similarly.
“However, the same situation is not prevalent for several storks living in the farmlands of Asia and several African countries where they are found in abundance. This incorrect assumption, along with ignoring research from these countries, is suggestive of a continuing colonial mindset in conservation,” he said.
Several stork species have been assigned least Concern even though these species had exceedingly little information available of their needs and ecological requirements, Sundar said.
“These stork species, and a large number of other species that have been assessed on the IUCN Red List, should be categorised as ‘Data Deficient’. This would help students and researchers identify species that require scientific assessment and basic knowledge,” he said, adding that such assignments have made the Red List, especially for birds, greatly unreliable.
Sundar and the co-authors of the new manuscript have strongly advised that even species categorised as least concern require resources so that they are monitored and managers can ensure that common species stay common. Once such species decline, it is usually exceedingly difficult and expensive to restore them.
The authors have argued that extinction risk alone is not adequate to direct conservation efforts and have recommended broadening conservation planning and decision-making without entirely depending on the Red List.
Sundar said that discussions have revealed that, in many cases, existing rules and guidelines of the IUCN are either not followed or used incorrectly. “The entire exercise that disallows a wider participation and use of researcher knowledge in favour of a top-down approach defeats the purpose of both the IUCN ethos and the Red List,” he said.
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