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Seychellonema gerlachi. © Justin Gerlach
Ramorinoa girolae, an endemic species of Western Argentina (distributed in
the Provinces of La Rioja, San Luis and San Juan), provisionally assessed as
Endangered. © Pablo Demaio
policies.
In 2013 we began contacting Provincial officials in Argentina.
As a result of this enterprise, we completed the first workshop
in July 2013, in the province of San Juan, assessing 53
endemic species with the participation of local experts and the
counseling of Dr Mariella Superina, Chair of the Anteater, Sloth
and Armadillo Specialist Group, to whom we are very thankful.
There is another workshop arranged for 2014 in the Province
of San Luis, in which we plan to evaluate another 25 species.
In parallel, we are interacting with local scientific
institutions, trying to include the assessment of endemic
species in scientific projects. The Specialist Group is formally
involved in the project ‘Native plants of the centre of Argentina:
diversity, uses and conservation’, led by staff scientists of the
Botanical Museum of Córdoba (Herbarium acronym CORD). In
this project, we plan to evaluate 269 endemic species
distributed in the Provinces of Córdoba, Santiago del Estero
and La Pampa.
We would like to thank the government of the Province of
San Juan for their generous financial support.
Dr Pablo Demaio
Chair, Temperate South American Plant Specialist Group
Terrestrial and Freshwater Invertebrate Red
List Authority
The Terrestrial and Freshwater Invertebrate Red List Authority
(TIRLA) has the remit of managing the Red Listing of all nonmarine
invertebrates not covered by any Specialist Group.
TIRLA’s remit covers at least a million described species and it
currently has 73 members.
In 2013 a new Cave Invertebrate Specialist Group was
established. Discussions with hoverfly experts failed to result in
any progress in forming a hoverfly group, but Red List groups
within TIRLA were established for centipedes and millipedes,
ants and South American tarantulas. It is hoped that in time
these may develop into full Specialist Groups. These are only
limited achievements and fall far from establishing the
infrastructure needed. The failure to develop the necessary
infrastructure is not due to a lack of experts or interest, but
reflects the impossibility of allocating sufficient time to the task
on a purely voluntary basis.
Similarly, there has been progress in increasing the number
of invertebrate assessments on The IUCN Red List, but this is
mainly the result of a small number of highly focussed
initiatives and does little to improve the diversity of invertebrate
species on The IUCN Red List. Of the total of 454 TIRLA
species added to the list, 315 were dung beetles assessed for
the Dung Beetle Sampled Red List Index (SRLI), making good
progress towards the 2014 target for that group. This is largely
due to the great efforts of Monika Bohm in coordinating and
checking these assessments. One cave spider and a single
species of psyllid bug were also assessed. This represents a
34% increase in assessed species since 2012, but is far from a
representative sample.
A major initiative for 2013 was the reassessment of 415
species of non-marine invertebrate assessments dating from
1996, almost all of which were assessed without data to
support the allocated category. At the start of 2013 these
represented just over 50% of non-marine invertebrate species
on The IUCN Red List, making the accuracy of invertebrate
data on the list highly questionable. These reassessments
have proved challenging, in many cases no rationale for the
1996 listing was ever provided and there is limited expertise
available (and lack of interest) to reassess these taxa Following
the development of the new Cave Invertebrate SG and plans to
expand the scope of the Crab and Freshwater Crayfish SG
some of the remaining species will no longer fall within TIRLA’s
remit and will be reallocated. Of the species left in TIRLA’s
remit, 23% have been reassessed.
Progress towards making The IUCN Red List
representative of biodiversity as described in the SSC strategic
plan is currently extremely slow, and seems unlikely to be
achieved on current rates of progress. At present a significant
proportion of invertebrates on The Red List are individual
assessments of species thought to be of concern, rather than
comprehensive or sampled assessments, thus any data
88 IUCN species Annual Report 2013