The IUCN Green Status of Species: how to thrive not just survive

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species stands as the most widely established method for understanding which, and where, species are at risk of extinction.

While we celebrate efforts that reduce or prevent increases in extinction risk as a legitimate conservation success - for example, when species are downlisted on the Red List from a higher category of threat to a lower category due to successful conservation actions - this is only a first step toward achieving more ambitious conservation goals.

However, conservationists have lacked an objective and practical definition of species recovery that is applicable across taxonomic groups and a means of measuring and reporting on recovery.

This event introduces the IUCN’s new Green Status of Species, a new part of the Red List introduced in the summer of 2021, that provides a tool for assessing species recovery and the impact of conservation efforts.

The Green Status of Species reports not only how far a species is from full recovery (which requires that a species be present, viable and ecologically functional in all parts of its indigenous range), but also how conservation actions have affected the current status of the species, and how a species’ status might change if conservation actions were to be halted or increased in the future.

This session explores examples of the application of this new tool to species around the world, and highlights how it can also play an important role in helping frame and set ambitious recovery targets.

Speakers:

• Dr Molly Grace, University of Oxford and IUCN Green Status of Species Working Group: "An introduction to the IUCN Green Status of Species and its application for conservation management, monitoring and decision-making"

• Dr Claudio Azat, Universidad Andrés Bello, Chile: "Application of the GSS to a flagship for Austral Forest conservation: bringing hope to the severely endangered Darwin’s frogs"

• Marites (Tess) Gatan-Balbas, Mabuwaya Foundation, Philippines and Merlijn van Weerd, Leiden University, Netherlands and Mabuwaya Foundation, Philippines: "A future for the Philippine Crocodile Crocodylus mindorensis in the wild"

• Dr Claudia Gray, Species Recovery Programme Manager, Zoological Society of London: "An institutional application of the Green Status of Species for planning and monitoring of ambitious recovery projects"