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SCAR Report No 22, November 2002

Appendix 3

Proposed process by which SCAR assesses conservation status of Antarctic flora and fauna

  1. SCAR establishes a group to review all species currently identified by IUCN as globally threatened in the IUCN Red List (ie. categories of Vulnerable, Endangered and Critically Endangered) which meet the Antarctic Treaty criteria for occurring in the Antarctic Treaty area, either as breeders or as summer migrants. This initial review to assess whether the species are also regionally threatened, with respect to the Antarctic Treaty area and the CCAMLR area. The criteria and approach to guide this evaluation should be those set out in the Gardenfors et al (2001) and/or later versions as approved by IUCN.
  2. The SCAR group would then discuss its recommendations with appropriate IUCN Red List Authority Groups (through some mechanism yet to be developed with IUCN) to ensure consistency of use and interpretation of criteria with the IUCN global assessment and/or with other regional assessments.
  3. The SCAR group would then proceed to consider/review (in terms of their status in the Antarctic Treaty region and according to the above approaches and criteria) species identified in the IUCN Red List as globally Near Threatened or Data Deficient. It would follow this with a similar review of all species endemic (or near-endemic) to the Antarctic Treaty area.
  4. The SCAR group would consult with appropriate IUCN groups in respect of any taxa which, in its opinion, might merit recognition under the IUCN categories of global threat and through this process suggest appropriate changes to the next annual revision of the IUCN Red List.
  5. For species considered to meet the criteria for regionally threatened status, recommendations would be forwarded for consideration by the CEP. These recommendations should be accompanied by a brief indicative statement of the kinds of land-based management actions which might be appropriate to protect, or improve the status of, the species concerned

Mechanisms

The main review process would require SCAR to establish some new group with appropriate membership, including scientists involved in the categorization of threatened species and those with scientific knowledge of the species or species groups concerned. This group would need to function so as to produce an annual/regular review and report on an appropriate time frame for transmission to CEP and/or IUCN.

It seems likely that expert groups might be needed for birds, marine mammals, marine vertebrates, marine invertebrates, terrestrial invertebrates, plants (this might even require separate groups for lichens and mosses). It is possible that IUCN will not have established groups covering all of these fields. SCAR needs to recognize the fact that the scientific conservation issue needs to be addressed regardless of the competent legal authority for some of these groups.

For the review of species endemic to the Antarctic Treaty area (and what about the CCAMLR area?), a considerably larger advisory and/or correspondence group would need establishing, in order to ensure that all relevant groups of plants and animals received a consistent review. For this exercise, it may be appropriate to expand the membership of the main group in order to ensure a comprehensive evaluation.

An initial timetable could be for globally threatened species to be identified by 2003/04, near threatened by 2004/05 and endemics by 2005/06.

Reference

Gärdenfors U et al. 2001. The application of IUCN Red List Criteria at regional levels. Conservation Biology, 15, 1206-1212.