December 2020

The Centre will act as a regional support hub, helping to provide assessments for Argentina's National Red List and the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, as well as coordinating conservation planning and species recovery action initiatives.

Following the latest update on Thursday 10 December, there are now 128,918 species on the IUCN Red List, of which 35,765 are threatened with extinction.

Find out more in the press release.

Climate change is now the biggest threat to natural World Heritage, according to the IUCN World Heritage Outlook 3 which was published on Wednesday 2 December.

Read the press release, download the report, and watch the recorded webinars to celebrate this important milestone.

Creature Candy, a UK-based business producing wildlife-themed homewares, will donate 10% of its sales to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species when customers use the code REDLIST10 at the website checkout. Customers will also get 10% off when using this code, until the end of January 2021.

Don’t forget to view the CPSG webinar series! Each episode in the series explores an element of or approach to species conservation planning.

The IUCN SSC Primate Specialist Group Section on Small Apes and the International Collaboration to Conserve Gibbons and Siamang have joined forces with The Hainan Institute of National Parks and Eco Foundation Global to establish the Global Gibbon Network Initiative.

Photo (right) © Professor Fan Peng-Fei of Sun Yat-Sen University, China

The Cactus and Succulent Plants Specialist Group, Associazione per la Biodiversitá e la sua Conservazione (Italy) and Universidad de Concepción (Chile) are working with Italian and Chilean authorities to repatriate the largest shipment of illegally harvested threatened Chilean cacti confiscated in Italy to date, involving hundreds of specimens. 

Learn more in this Italian news story and Chilean video in Spanish.

Photo (left) © Andrea Cattabriga

As a part of the SOS African Wildlife initiative funded by the European Union, Rapid Action Grants are now available for projects implemented in South Africa and responding to threats linked to the COVID-19 crisis.

You can learn more and submit your applications through the SOS Online Portal.

Where do scientists, conservationists, natural resource managers and businesses find available data that might be of use for biodiversity monitoring?

The IUCN SSC Species Monitoring Specialist Group and Global Wildlife Conservation conducted an inventory of biodiversity data sources for conservation monitoring. The results are published here and the database of data sources is available here. 

Follow the SMSG on Twitter @Monitor_Species for more details and the latest news.

The only desert-adapted antelope, the addax, may be the rarest hoofed mammal in the world. Hope to save the species from extinction lies in collaboration between the oil sector, government and conservationists, write members of the IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group.

Photo (right) © Tim Woodfine

This Reverse the Red series discusses the collective efforts it will take to reverse the trends of species extinction. 

Watch the recorded webinars.

It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Olaf Weyl, who had been the Regional Chair for Southern Africa for the SSC Freshwater Fish Specialist Group since 2015.

Olaf died suddenly on November 14, while working in the field with his students. Olaf was an enthusiastic and energetic member of the FFSG, and a leader in fish biology and fish conservation, and he will be greatly missed.

An official announcement, with a link to a webpage for messages of remembrance, is posted on the website of the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity. Olaf recently recorded a presentation that summarises his journey into the world of fish and fisheries, which can be viewed here.

Photo (left) © NRF-SAIAB

The 2020 recipient of the George B. Rabb Conservation Medal is Dr Jon Paul Rodríguez, Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. The medal was awarded during the 2020 Conservation Leadership Awards Celebration by the Chicago Zoological Society’s Board of Trustees and Women’s Board.

Photo (right) © Chicago Zoological Society

This new mobile game aims to raise support for Kakapo conservation. Get the Kakapo to safety by escaping hungry stoats as you jump, dodge and slide through forests, shorelines and cities across New Zealand to reach Sanctuary Island.

On the Edge Conservation and SSC have together selected the recipients of the first round of SSC EDGE Internal Grants. Six grants totalling approximately USD 57,000 have been awarded to the SSC Groups listed here. Their projects will support the Assess and Plan priorities in the SSC Species Conservation Cycle. Congratulations to all!

A new round of this grant will open in September 2021.

A conservation strategy for the Endangered slender-horned gazelle (Gazella leptoceros) has been developed through remote consultations between national governments and other stakeholders and is available in French and English.

If you would like to learn more, please contact the IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group.

The rapid decline of the Yangtze river dolphin and vaquita highlight the urgent need to take action to prevent declines in other populations of small cetaceans. This report is the result of a workshop help to start preparing such action.

A new paper, Ghosts of the deep – Biodiversity, fisheries, and extinction risk of ghost sharks, synthesised the status of the 52 species of one of the three chondrichthyan lineages – subclass Holocephali. They are increasingly threatened by deepwater fisheries yet have high data deficiency and endemicity. This was part of the global reassessment of all chondrichthyans for the IUCN Red List being undertaken through the Global Shark Trends Project.

Published by IUCN in collaboration with the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi.

The Human-Wildlife Conflict Task Force is pleased to share two new publications: an IUCN SSC Position Statement on the Management of Human-Wildlife Conflict (also available in French and Portuguese) summarises the most important aspects of understanding and addressing human-wildlife conflicts, and a briefing paper explains the Task Force’s definition of human-wildlife conflict.

IUCN SSC Hornbill Specialist Group Newsletter, Vol. 1, No. 2

Suiform Soundings, the newsletter of the IUCN SSC Wild Pig Specialist Group