New IUCN green status launched to help species ‘thrive, not just survive’
A new conservation tool could help put thousands of threatened animal and plant species on the road to recovery, allowing creatures such as the Sumatran rhino and the California condor to flourish once again.
Scientists have typically focused on monitoring how close endangered species are to extinction, regularly updating the severity of the risk on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) red list, which includes iconic wildlife such as the mountain gorilla and rare flowering plants such as the Bayard’s adder’s-mouth orchid.
Now, a new global standard known as the IUCN green status of species will help provide a richer picture of a species’ conservation status by detailing how close it is to recovering its original population size and health.
More than 200 scientists representing 171 institutions have spent 10 years working towards the new measure. The first assessments for 181 species have been published in the journal Conservation Biology. Included are the pink pigeon, found in Mauritius, the grey wolf and the Kandelia obovata mangrove in east Asia.
