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Earth Watch, Innflow AG, Stämpfli Publikationen AG, and
especially Patrick Meier, Peter Stämpfli, and Jean-Claude and
Annemarie Tschumper.
Dr Christine Breitenmoser and Dr Urs Breitenmoser
Co-chairs, Cat Specialist Group
Caucasus Plant Red List Authority
The mission of the Caucasus Plant RLA is to assess extinction
risk of the Caucasus plants and develop strategies for their
conservation.
The major achievement of the Caucasus Plant RLA in
2013 was publication of the Regional Plant Conservation
Strategy for the Caucasus region Caucasus Plant Initiative by
Missouri Botanical Garden’s Centre for Conservation and
Sustainable Development, in collaboration with BGCI. The
Strategy can be downloaded here. The document was
developed as a result of the project ‘Coordination and
Development of Plant Red List Assessments for the Caucasus
Biodiversity Hotspot’ which was implemented by the IUCN
Species Survival Commission in collaboration with Missouri
Botanical Garden, USA, the WWF Caucasus Programme
Office, and botanists from six countries of the Caucasus
(Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Russia, and Turkey) from
2006 to 2010. Targets of the Regional Strategy correspond to
those of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC)
2011–2020. The document illustrates the relevance of the
Caucasus Plant Initiative (CPI) targets to the targets and
actions in the revised and updated Ecoregion Conservation
Plan (ECP) for the Caucasus. Whenever possible, the CPI
should be considered together with ECP in plant conservation
and sustainable use planning.
At present the major output of the above project: Schatz,
G., Shulkina, T. and Solomon, J. (eds.) Red List of the
Endemic Plants of the Caucasus Region; Missouri Botanical
Garden Press, Saint Louis, USA, is in press. Information on
this publication was presented by Prof. Dr George
Nakhutsrishvili at the Plant Life of South West Asia conference
at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh from 1–5 July 2013.
Prof. Dr George Nakhutsrishvilli
Caucasus Plant Red List Authority Coordinator
Cave Invertebrate Specialist Group
Our mission is to stimulate the conservation of all cave
invertebrates, focusing on those not yet covered by other
Specialist Groups such as millipedes, woodlice, springtails,
terrestrial crabs, and spiders which all face very similar threats.
Many of the species covered by the Group are currently
unknown, undescribed, unprotected, and unassessed for The
IUCN Red List. A search of The IUCN Red List 2012 using
‘cave’ as the keyword, ‘Caves and Subterranean Habitats (nonaquatic)’
as the habitat, and ‘Arthropods’ as the taxonomic
group resulted in just 10 species – the number of Critically
Endangered species we predict will be found in single caves.
Being a partially habitat-defined group there is a degree of
overlap with a few existing Specialist Groups but we intend to
make that a positive influence. Our membership is currently
being formed.
Having been established only in December 2013,
comprehensive IUCN Red List assessments will not begin until
2014. However, during the period of its establishment, a ‘living
fossil’ spider (Liphistius kanthan) which is threatened by a
limestone quarry in Malaysia was listed as Critically
Endangered. The IUCN Director General wrote to the CEO of
Lafarge and the Malaysian State Chief Minister, expressing
concern over the threat posed to the spider by their quarrying.
Follow-up has been led by the Co-Chair. As yet, no research in
the context of the Specialist Group has yet been conducted.
A wide range of outreach activities are planned for 2014;
the hash tag #caveinvert has been used on Twitter and will be
used by members tweeting their news.
The Co-chairs have been working together for the
conservation of cave-adapted fauna for nearly two decades,
primarily in SE Asia, Louis from the National Museum of
Natural History, and Tony initially from the World Bank and now
from Fauna and Flora International.
Tony Whitten and Louis Deharveng
Co-chairs, Cave Invertebrate Specialist Group
Cetacean Specialist Group
The mission of the Cetacean Specialist Group (CSG) has long
been and remains to promote and facilitate the conservation of
cetaceans (88 species currently recognized) worldwide. It seeks
Paeonia mlokosewitschii Lomakin. © Sh. Sikharulidze and L. Asieshvili
Kanthan Cave Trapdoor Spider (Liphistius kanthan). © Bjorn Olesen
42 IUCN species Annual Report 2013