1oC3Dbk

2013 Snapshots
The Species Survival Commission (SSC) is a science-based network comprising over 9,000 volunteer experts
deployed across more than 130 Specialist Groups, Red List Authorities and Task Forces, all working together
towards achieving the vision of: “A world that values and conserves present levels of biodiversity.”
The SSC works in close association with IUCN’s Global Species Programme (GSP) and provides information to
IUCN on biodiversity conservation, the inherent value of species, their role in ecosystem health and functioning,
the provision of ecosystem services, and their support to human livelihoods. This information is fed into The IUCN
Red List of Threatened Species.
The unprecedented levels of poaching and illegal wildlife trade over the past few years were met head-on in 2013,
with a number of high profile summits and forums co-organized by the SSC. The first-ever global conference on
the conservation of pangolins was held by the IUCN SSC Pangolin Specialist Group, and at the Jubilee Meeting
of the Parties to the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, the five range states of the polar bear
agreed to adopt a resolution encouraging the IUCN SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group to determine how best to
use traditional ecological knowledge, together with scientific approaches and analyses of polar bear population
status for more effective decision-making.
African Elephant Summit
IUCN with the government of Botswana
organized an African Elephant Summit from
2–4 December in Gaborone, Botswana. This
work related to a Resolution on the
Conservation of African Elephants that was
passed at the IUCN Jeju Congress in 2012.
The goal of the Summit was to raise awareness at the highest
political level about the dimensions of the poaching crisis and
the dynamics of the illegal ivory trade, as well as committing
to urgent actions for securing viable elephant populations
across the continent, halting illegal trade and seeking political,
financial, and technical support to implement these urgent
actions. It was the first-ever meeting to focus on the dynamics
of the entire ivory value chain. The set of urgent measures
were drafted prior to the meeting and invited for comment by
a broad range of stakeholders. The measures were
subsequently finalized and agreed upon by key African
Elephant range states at the Summit including Gabon, Kenya,
Niger and Zambia, ivory transit states Viet Nam, Philippines
and Malaysia and ivory destination states, including China and
Thailand. For more details on the meeting itself and its
outcomes, please see the Summit page on the IUCN SSC
African Elephant Specialist Group website.
CITES CoP16
IUCN played a key role at the 16th Conference
of the Parties meeting for the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species
(CITES CoP16) which took place on 3–14
March 2013 in Bangkok, Thailand. Several
issues of critical importance to species conservation were on
the agenda, such as proposals to list a number of threatened
shark and tree species on Appendix II. One of IUCN’s major
contributions at the meeting was producing the Analyses of
the Proposals to Amend the CITES Appendices which it has
undertaken with TRAFFIC since 1987 – the document
provides an independent and science-based review of each
proposal which the countries party to CITES (most countries
in the world) rely on for decision-making. At CITES CoP16, the
seminal decision was made to list the oceanic whitetip shark,
porbeagle shark, manta rays and scalloped, great and smooth
hammerhead sharks on Appendix II. The meeting also
addressed international trade issues relating to elephants,
rhinos, tortoises and freshwater turtles, pangolins, humphead
wrasse, crocodiles, polar bears, snakes, cats, great apes,
marine turtles, antelopes, sturgeons, amphibians and trees
such as Malagasy ebony and rosewood species. The IUCN
delegation was led by the IUCN Species programme and the
meeting was attended by 18 Specialist Group members
representing many of the species discussed at the meeting.
For more information, see here.
Identifying the World’s Most
Climate Change Vulnerable
Species
Most species at greatest risk from climate
change are not currently conservation priorities,
finds an IUCN study that introduces a
pioneering method to assess the vulnerability of species to
climate change. Climate change will have far-reaching impacts
on biodiversity, including increasing extinction rates. The
study’s novel approach looks at the unique biological and
ecological characteristics that make species more or less
sensitive or adaptable to climate change whereas
conventional methods have focused largely on measuring the
amount of change to which species are likely to be exposed.
IUCN will use the approach and results to ensure The IUCN
Red List continues to provide the best possible assessments
of extinction risk, including due to climate change. “The
findings revealed some alarming surprises,” says Wendy
Foden of IUCN Global Species Programme and leader of the
study. “We hadn’t expected that so many species and areas
that were not previously considered to be of concern would
emerge as highly vulnerable to climate change. Clearly, if we
2 IUCN species Annual Report 2013