IUCN Updates Red List of Threatened Species; Tree Harboring Taxol at Increased Risk

In November of 2011, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) updated its Red List of Threatened Species, documenting an increasing threat faced by several plants, including some important medicinal species.1 IUCN describes its Red List as “the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of plant and animal species.”2 Though IUCN often partners with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Red List is separate from the CITES appendices, which document the conservation status and risk assessments of animals and plants while also serving as an international agreement implementing trade restrictions followed by CITES members.3  

For the Red List, IUCN and partner organizations, such as the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew (in the United Kingdom), assess thousands of plant and animal species, considering which of 8 extinction risk levels a species should be classified as if no conservation action were to take place.2 The 8 risk levels are classed as follows: data deficient, least concern, near threatened, vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild, and extinct. Factors considered in the classification process include population trend, population size and structure, and geographic range.

According to Danna Leaman, PhD—the chair of IUCN’s Medicinal Plants Specialist Group (MPSG)—many medicinal species are included on the Red List, but it has been difficult to determine exactly which ones and how many (e-mail, December 12, 2011). In order to address this issue and document the conservation status of medicinals, the MPSG began building a Global Checklist of Medicinal Plants based on international, regional, and national pharmacopeias and medicinal floras, as well as the NAPRAlert database at the University of Illinois at Chicago, developed by the late Professor Norman Farnsworth. In May of 2010, the group teamed with TRAFFIC International to compare the list that then consisted of 16,600 species (and now includes ca. 27,000) with the online and off-line versions of the IUCN Red List.

more at:

http://cms.herbalgram.org/heg/volume9/01January/IUCNRedListupdated.html?t=1326058297&ts=1387112293&signature=0bcf8c28490166eee52716b7f53dce00