The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) just released its’ update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It comes with more bad news for threatened and endangered species, and some good. But the reality is, the news is mostly bad.
The IUCN is considered to be the world’s oldest and largest
global environmental network with more than 1,000 government and NGO member
organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160
countries. And the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ is widely recognized as
the most comprehensive, objective global approach for evaluating the
conservation status of plant and animal species.
That is what makes their latest report so troubling. If any
organization knows what’s going on with the status of threatened and endangeredspecies, it would be the IUCN.In summary, the IUCN Red List update says 25% of mammals are at risk of extinction. And some subspecies have been declared extinct such as the Western Black Rhino in central Africa.
The news wasn’t much better for other sub-species of rhino such as the Northern White rhino which according to the IUCN is ‘teetering’ on the edge of extinction. The Javan rhino is making its’ ‘last stand’ as a single, tiny, declining population on Java.
The IUCN report says “a lack of political support and will power for conservation efforts in many rhino habitats, international organized crime groups targeting rhinos and increasing illegal demand for rhino horns and commercial poaching are the main threats faced by rhinos.”
There were many more facts and figures published by the IUCN in their Red List update. In fact they say they now have more than 61,900 species under review.
Considering my goal for this next year is to ‘update’ the information on the Bagheera, Endangered Earth and Tigers in Crisis websites, it would certainly makes sense to spend some time understanding both depth of the IUCN as an organization, and the scope of their Red List of Threatened Species.
So that is now where this exploration is heading.
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For more information about endangered species go to www.Bagheera.com
For more information about endangered tigers go to www.TigersInCrisis.com