Regional Red List Programme

While the distributional ranges of species are not usually influenced by political boundaries, conservation planning and priority setting schemes often are. The development of Regional Red Lists to assess the conservation status of species within a certain management unit helps to expand biodiversity knowledge and inform effective conservation solutions.

Following the success of the IUCN Categories and Criteria designed to assess the conservation status of species globally, there was increasing demand for guidelines to apply the system at the regional level. In 2003, IUCN developed a set of quantitative criteria to assess the conservation status of species at the regional and national level.

Regional Red Lists are used to assess the risk of extinction to species within a political management unit and therefore may feed directly into national and regional planning. This project is coordinated by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), and partners in national governments, universities and organisations throughout the world.

Regional Red Lists may assist countries or regions in:

Determining the conservation status and trends of species
Identifying species or ecosystems under greatest threat
Informing conservation planning and priority setting
Raising awareness of threatened species

The Zoological Society of London, in collaboration with the IUCN Regional Red List Working Group, is developing an active global network of countries and individuals working on Regional Red Lists. This will include a centralised online database where Regional Red List assessments and Action Plans can be stored, managed, and made accessible. The database will be publicly accessible through the Regional Red List website (regionalredlist.org), where users will be able to find out more about the Regional Red Listing process, access relevant Red Listing documents and links, search the species database, and browse the downloadable library of all existing Regional Red Lists produced around the globe.
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Mongolian Red List Project:

Mongolian mammal populations have been experiencing declines after the past several decades of rapid social and economic change. In order to develop a better understanding of the conservation status of these species and to identify the required conservation measures, a Red List of Mongolian mammals was created. The assessments were carried out by over 70 of the world’s leading experts on Mongolian mammals at the 3-day Mongolian Biodiversity Databank workshop in Oct-Nov 2005. After identifying a species as threatened, a Summary Conservation Action Plan was drawn up unique to that species, outlining the conservation measures in place and those required.

It was found that certain taxonomic groups were disproportionately threatened. For example, 78% of Mongolian ungulate species (Artiodactyla and Perissiodactyla) were categorised as threatened, while only 12% of carnivores and 12 % of rodents were found to be threatened (Clark et al. 2006a). These threatened species were concentrated in two regions; in the north, corresponding to the area of highest species richness, and in the southwest around the Dzungarian Govi and Trans Altai Govi Deserts (Figure 1).

After completing this work, ZSL and the National University of Mongolia have developed Red Lists and Summary Conservation Action Plans for Mongolian fishes, reptiles and amphibians. Currently a Red List of Mongolian birds is being developed, after which the conservation status of all Mongolian vertebrates will have been assessed and conservation measures needed for all threatened species will have been delineated.

Figure 1. Distribution of threatened mammals in Mongolia. Darker red represents areas with a greater number of threatened mammal species.

Relevant Publications:

Clark, E. L., Munkhbat, J., Dulamtseren, S., Baillie, J. E. M., Batsaikhan, N., Samiya, R. and Stubbe, M. (compilers and editors) (2006a). Mongolian Red List of Mammals. Regional Red List Series Vol. 1. Zoological Society of London, London. (In English and Mongolian).

Clark, E. L., Munkhbat, J., Dulamtseren, S., Baillie, J. E. M., Batsaikhan, N., King, S. R. B., Samiya, R. and Stubbe, M. (compilers and editors) (2006b). Summary Conservation Action Plans for Mongolian Mammals. Regional Red List Series Vol. 2. Zoological Society of London, London. (In English and Mongolian). Download PDF (4.0 MB)

Collen, B., Ram, M., Zamin, T. and McRae, L. 2008. The tropical biodiversity data gap: addressing disparity in global monitoring. Tropical Conservation Science 1(2):97-110. Available online: tropicalconservationscience.org

Gärdenfors, U., Hilton-Taylor, C., Mace, G.M., Rodríguez, R.P. 2001. The Application of IUCN Red List Criteria at Regional Levels. 15 (5): 1206-1212.

IUCN. 2003. Guidelines for Application of IUCN Red List Criteria at Regional Levels: Version 3.0. IUCN Species Survival Commission. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. ii + 26 pp.

Miller, R.M., Rodríguez, J.P., Aniskowicz-Fowler, T., Bambaradeniya, C., Boles, R., Eaton, M.A., Gärdenfors, U., Keller, V., Molur, S., Walker, S., Pollock, C. (2006) Extinction Risk and Conservation Priorities. Science 313: 441.

Miller, R.M., Rodríguez, J.P., Aniskowicz-Fowler, T., Bambaradeniya, C., Boles, R., Eaton, M.A., Gärdenfors, U., Keller, V., Molur, S., Walker, S., Pollock, C. (2007) National Threatened Species Listing Based on IUCN Criteria and Regional Guidelines: Current Status and Future Perspectives. Conservation Biology 21(3): 684-696.

Ocock, J., Baasanjav, G., Baillie, J. E. M., Erbenebat, M., Kottelat, M., Mendsaikhan, B. and Smith, K. (compilers and editors) (2006). Mongolian Red List of Fishes. Regional Red List Series Vol. 3. Zoological Society of London, London. (In English and Mongolian). Download PDF (1.3 MB)

Ocock, J., Baasanjav, G., Baillie, J. E. M., Erbenebat, M., Kottelat, M. Mendsaikhan, B. and Smith, K. (compilers and editors) (2006). Summary Conservation Action Plans for Mongolian Fishes. Regional Red List Series Vol. 4. Zoological Society of London, London. (In English and Mongolian). Download PDF (1.5 MB)

Terbish, Kh., Munkhbayar, Kh., Clark, E.L., Munkhbat, J., Monks, E.M., Munkhbaatar, M., Baillie, J.E.M., Borkin, L., Batsaikhan, N., Samiya, R. and Semenov, D.V. (compilers and editors) (2006). Mongolian Red List of Reptiles and Amphibians. Regional Red List Series Vol. 5. Zoological Society of London, London. (In English and Mongolian). Download PDF (788 KB)

Terbish, Kh., Munkhbayar, Kh., Clark, E.L., Munkhbat, J., Monks, E.M., Munkhbaatar, M., Baillie, J.E.M., Borkin, L., Batsaikhan, N., Samiya, R. and Semenov, D.V. (compilers and editors) (2006). Summary Conservation Action Plans for Mongolian Reptiles and Amphibians. Regional Red List Series Vol. 6. Zoological Society of London, London. (In English and Mongolian). Download PDF (434 KB)

UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Biodiversity data source book, in WCMC Biodiversity Series No 1, B. Groombridge, Editor. 1994, UNEP WCMC: Cambridge. p. 140.
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