“We are very close to a sixth species extinction” says an official at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature

As species disappearance accelerates, not all of them can be saved, warns Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. This list, which highlights endangered plants and animals, was updated on Saturday, September 4, on the occasion of the organization’s world summit, taking place in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône). “Trends show that we are 100 to 1000 times above normal extinction rates.” Craig Hilton-Taylor said on this occasion in an interview with AFP.

“I would say the Red List shows that we are very close to a sixth mass extinction. If the increase continues at this rate, we will soon be facing a major crisis.” He continued.

“If we look at the rate of extinctions per century over 1,500 years, we notice a sharp inflection that starts in the 1900s”, says the IUCN official. Without this red list, created in 1964, “we would almost certainly have lost many species around the world”, he adds, citing the Arabian oryx. With this list, “We’re seeing species that were on the brink of extinction thrive today”, thanks to the conservation efforts it awakens.

Gold, “the amount of funding available is limited and there are a large number of species”, warn Craig Hilton-Taylor. “It brings hard realities. You have to let some species go extinct because we can’t really save them.”

Given the decline of animal and plant species, are conservation efforts paying off? To find out, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced the implementation of the “Green Status of Species”. This new list has “Two main objectives: measuring the regeneration of species, which has never been done” and knowing the impact of conservation programs, Molly Grace, coordinator of the Green Status working group, explained Friday (September 3) at a press conference at the IUCN World Congress.

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Like the Red List, the “Green Species Status” has nine categories, from “full recovery” For “extinction in nature”, going through different stages, “Slight decrease”, “moderate decrease”, “significant decrease”, “critical decrease”. This classification counts for the time being 181 species evaluated, far from the 38,500 that appear in the Red List. Others are under evaluation and will be announced at the end of the year. The Green Status will be added to the Red List.

Ultimately, the idea is to also develop an index to measure the recovery of a group of species. “The Red List and Green Status provide separate but related and complementary assessments of a species’ conservation status”, specified the IUCN, which also created a “Green List of protected and conserved areas”. The latter has a total of 59 websites worldwide and is based on 17 criteria in four areas: “good governance, robust design and planning, effective management and effective conservation outcomes.”

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