o_19ko2dt161ng2j4e1tgnoqv1s45a.pdf

APPLYING THE IUCN RED LIST CATEGORIES IN A FOREST SETTING
MECHANISMS FOR SHARING INFORMATION AND
METHODOLOGIES
The Red List workshop held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, brought together nearly 200 people
from around 50 different institutes, including national and state forest departments, the national
forestry research institute, environmental and conservation organizations, botanic gardens
and universities. The workshop represented a first step towards the development of a national
Red Data book of plants and focused on familiarizing participants with the Red List categories.
Some dissatisfaction had previously been expressed by Malaysian scientists and resource
managers with the way certain published Red Data assessments had been derived mainly
through remote desk work with insufficient reference to details on the ground (Chen, 2004).
Red List assessments, furthermore, are perceived by some to play an important role in
determining both government and international trade policy concerning commercial species
and, therefore, are treated with political interest (despite the expressed intentions of the IUCN
for the Red List categories not to be used for prioritization without the consideration of multiple
additional factors). Given this context the workshop played a pivotal role in developing a
common understanding of the Red List system among a diverse group of stakeholders and
allowed taxonomists and researchers to benefit from the insights of resource managers and for
the latter to contribute directly to the assigning of Red List categories.
One of the main challenges in both resource management and Red List assessments is to
ensure that the species of concern out of the thousands of described species are the focus of
attention. The highly rare species are well-known by the taxonomist but possibly not by the
resource manager. From the latter’s perspective rare species may be overlooked if their use
and value are not considered to be significant, or they may simply be unrecognised. However,
mutual territory of appreciation to both taxonomists and resource managers exists in the form
of species that are locally widespread (and hence appear in forest inventories) but suffering
(or have suffered) significant declines either through habitat decline or direct exploitation.
These species potentially may be considered threatened through the use of criterion A or B.
These are the same criteria that allow the use of inference and are more open to interpretation.
The Malaysian workshop allowed resource managers and researchers to air their different
views on and discuss the impact of past, continuing or future habitat declines on species
extinction rates. In the future, such a group could come to an agreement on the estimated
decline in specific habitat types and how species might be consistently assessed using criteria
A and B. Fortunately, the Malaysian Red Listing process has only just begun and according to
the project manager will involve a number of follow-up workshops to achieve this kind of
consensus (Saw L.G. pers. comm.).
There are further existing mechanisms for facilitating more informed assessments, including
networks, databases and electronic conference groups. Numerous forest genetic resources
(FGR) or forestry networks are already functioning and these are viable and valuable channels
for facilitating, enhancing awareness and also assisting in informed assessments across the
region as well as nationally. Examples of networks associated with IPGRI include the South
Pacific Regional Initiative on Forest Genetic Resources (SPRIG), which has coordinated work
in five south pacific island nations, the Central Asian and Transcaucasian Network on Plant
Genetic Resources (CATCN-PGR) in the central Asian sub-region, the Sub-Saharan African
Programme of Forest Genetic Resources (SAFORGEN) coordinating work in sub-Saharan
countries and the Asia Pacific Forest Genetic Resources Programme (APFORGEN). Such
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