European Red List of Trees

The European Red List is a review of the status of European species according to IUCN regional Red Listing guidelines. It identifies those species that are threatened with extinction at the regional level – in order that appropriate conservation action can be taken to improve their status. This publication summarises results for all Europe’s native species of tree (454 species), of which 265 species (over 58%) are endemic to continental Europe, with 56% (252 species) endemic to the 28 EU Member States. Of these, 168 (42%) of the species are threatened with extinction at the European level, however, for 57 species (nearly 13%) there was insufficient information to assign a conservation status, and are therefore classified as Data Deficient, and in need of further research. The main threat to tree species in Europe has been identified as invasive or problematic species, impacting 38% of tree species, followed by deforestation and wood harvesting, and urban development (both affecting 20% of tree species). For threatened species, livestock farming, land abandonment, changes in forest and woodland management, and other ecosystem modifications such as fire are the major threats, impacting the survival of trees.Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (IUCIN) - LIFE Listas Rojas Europeas - LIFE14 PRE/BE/000001Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (IUCIN) - LIFE Listas Rojas Europeas - LIFE14 PRE/BE/00000

Scientists' warning to humanity on tree extinctions

Societal Impact Statement Trees play vital roles in many of the world's ecosystems while providing many benefits to people. New evidence indicates that a third of tree species are threatened with extinction, representing a tree extinction crisis. Here we demonstrate how tree species extinction will lead to the loss of many other plants and animals and significantly alter the world's ecosystems. We also show how tree extinction will negatively affect billions of people through loss of livelihoods and benefits. We highlight a series of urgent actions needed to avert an ecological, cultural and socio-economic catastrophe caused by widespread extinction of tree species. Summary Trees are of exceptional ecological importance, playing a major functional role in the world's ecosystems, while also supporting many other plants, animals and fungi. Many tree species are also of direct value to people, providing a wide range of socioeconomic benefits. Loss of tree diversity could lead to abrupt declines in biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services and ultimately ecosystem collapse. Here we provide an overview of the current knowledge regarding the number of tree species that are threatened with extinction, and the threats that affect them, based on results of the Global Tree Assessment. This evidence suggests that a third of the world's tree species are currently threatened with extinction, which represents a major ecological crisis. We then examine the potential implications of tree extinctions, in terms of the functioning of the biosphere and impacts on human well-being. Large-scale extinction of tree species will lead to major biodiversity losses in other species groups and substantially alter the cycling of carbon, water and nutrients in the world's ecosystems. Tree extinction will also undermine the livelihoods of the billions of people who currently depend on trees and the benefits they provide. This warning to humanity aims to raise awareness of the tree extinction crisis, which is a major environmental issue that requires urgent global attention. We also identify some priority actions that need to be taken to reduce the extinction risk of tree species and to avert the ecological and socio-economic catastrophe that will result from large-scale extinction of tree specie

Towards a Global Tree Assessment

Although trees have high economic, cultural and ecological value, increasing numbers of species are potentially at risk of extinction because of forest loss and degradation as a result of human activities, including overharvesting, fire and grazing. Emerging threats include climate change and its interaction with the spread of pests and diseases. The impact of such threats on the conservation status of trees is poorly understood. Here we highlight the need to conduct a comprehensive conservation assessment of the world's tree species, building on previous assessments undertaken for the IUCN Red List. We suggest that recent developments in plant systematics, online databases, remote sensing data and associated analytical tools offer an unprecedented opportunity to conduct such an assessment. We provide an overview of how a Global Tree Assessment could be achieved in practice, through participative, open-access approaches to data sharing and evaluation

Rapid forest inventory and mapping: Monitoring forest cover and land use change

This paper discusses the research tools used to create baseline data for carbon offset mechanisms. The paper explains vegetation survey methodologies with examples of their application in a variety of contexts. These range from rapid studies using remote sensing imagery, to full multiphase survey methods. The paper gives specific examples of how these methods are used to monitor deforestation and forest regeneration

Dominance and rarity in tree communities across the globe: Patterns, predictors and threats

Aim: Ecological and anthropogenic factors shift the abundances of dominant and rare tree species within local forest communities, thus affecting species composition and ecosystem functioning. To inform forest and conservation management it is important to understand the drivers of dominance and rarity in local tree communities. We answer the following research questions: (1) What are the patterns of dominance and rarity in tree communities? (2) Which ecological and anthropogenic factors predict these patterns? And (3) what is the extinction risk of locally dominant and rare tree species? Location: Global. Time period: 1990–2017. Major taxa studied: Trees. Methods: We used 1.2 million forest plots and quantified local tree dominance as the relative plot basal area of the single most dominant species and local rarity as the percentage of species that contribute together to the least 10% of plot basal area. We mapped global community dominance and rarity using machine learning models and evaluated the ecological and anthropogenic predictors with linear models. Extinction risk, for example threatened status, of geographically widespread dominant and rare species was evaluated. Results: Community dominance and rarity show contrasting latitudinal trends, with boreal forests having high levels of dominance and tropical forests having high levels of rarity. Increasing annual precipitation reduces community dominance, probably because precipitation is related to an increase in tree density and richness. Additionally, stand age is positively related to community dominance, due to stem diameter increase of the most dominant species. Surprisingly, we find that locally dominant and rare species, which are geographically widespread in our data, have an equally high rate of elevated extinction due to declining populations through large‐scale land degradation. Main conclusions: By linking patterns and predictors of community dominance and rarity to extinction risk, our results suggest that also widespread species should be considered in large‐scale management and conservation practices

Building robust, practicable counterfactuals and scenarios to evaluate the impact of species conservation interventions using inferential approaches

Robust evaluation of the impact of biodiversity conservation actions is important not only for ensuring that conservation strategies are effective and maximise return on investment, but also to identify and celebrate successful conservation strategies. This evaluation can be retrospective (comparing the current situation to a counterfactual scenario) or forward-looking (comparing future scenarios with or without conservation). However, assessment of impact using experimental or quasi-experimental designs is typically difficult in conservation, so rigorous inferential approaches are required. Inferential assessment of impact is a key part of the new IUCN Green Status of Species, which greatly amplifies the need for standardised and practical species impact evaluation methods. Here, we use the Green Status of Species method as a base to review how inferential methods can be used to evaluate conservation impact at the species level. We identify three key components of the inferential impact evaluation process—estimation of scenario outcomes, selection of baseline scenario, and frame of reference—and explain, with examples, how to reduce the subjectivity of these steps. We propose a step-by-step guide, incorporating these principles, that can be used to infer scenario outcomes in order to evaluate past and future conservation impact in a wide range of situations, not just Green Status of Species assessments. We recommend that future non-experimental conservation interventions facilitate the process of evaluating impact by identifying the variable(s) that will be used to measure impact at the design stage, and by using conceptual models to help choose conservation actions most likely to have the desired impact

Is ‘activist’ a dirty word? Place identity, activism and unconventional gas development across three continents

Communities respond to unconventional gas in a variety of ways. In some communities, industry has held a social license, while in other areas, industrial development has been slowed, halted, or prevented by social resistance. Repeatedly, across multiple nations and communities, we have observed that social identities that either incorporate or eschew activism intersect with perceptions of this development's effect on place identity to either foster or discourage opposition. Particularly interesting are cases in which fracking is perceived to threaten local place identity, but where activism conflicts with social identity. To mobilise different sectors of the population, it often appears important for local residents to be perceived as ‘regular citizens’ and not as activists. We explore how intersection of social identities and place identity shaped the different ways in which communities in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United States have responded to unconventional gas development. Communities resisting development often see ‘activism’ as something that ‘outsiders’ do and that must be rejected as insufficiently objective and neutral. This view of activism and activists produces specific forms of resistance that differ from typical ‘activist’ actions, in which ‘knowledge’, ‘information’, neutrality, and objectivity are particularly important.</p

European Red List of Trees

The European Red List is a review of the status of European species according to IUCN regional Red Listing guidelines. It identifies those species that are threatened with extinction at the regional level – in order that appropriate conservation action can be taken to improve their status. This publication summarises results for all Europe’s native species of tree (454 species), of which 265 species (over 58%) are endemic to continental Europe, with 56% (252 species) endemic to the 28 EU Member States. Of these, 168 (42%) of the species are threatened with extinction at the European level, however, for 57 species (nearly 13%) there was insufficient information to assign a conservation status, and are therefore classified as Data Deficient, and in need of further research. The main threat to tree species in Europe has been identified as invasive or problematic species, impacting 38% of tree species, followed by deforestation and wood harvesting, and urban development (both affecting 20% of tree species). For threatened species, livestock farming, land abandonment, changes in forest and woodland management, and other ecosystem modifications such as fire are the major threats, impacting the survival of trees.Peer reviewe

Impacts of herbivory by ecological replacements on an island ecosystem

The use of ecological replacements (analogue species to replace extinct taxa) to restore ecosystem functioning is a promising conservation tool. However, this approach is controversial, in part due to a paucity of data on interactions between analogue species and established taxa in the ecosystem. We conducted ecological surveys, comprehensively DNA barcoded an ecosystem's flora and inferred the diet of the introduced Aldabra giant tortoise, acting as an ecological replacement, to understand how it might have modified island plant communities on a Mauritian islet. Through further dietary analyses, we investigated consequential effects on the threatened endemic Telfair's skink. Dietary overlap between tortoises and skinks was greater than expected by chance. However, there was a negative correlation between tortoise and skink preferences in herbivory and minimal overlap in the plants most frequently consumed by the reptiles. Changes in the plant community associated with 7 years of tortoise grazing were characterised by a decrease in the percentage cover of native herbs and creepers, and an increase in the cover of an invasive herb when compared to areas without tortoises. However, tortoise dietary preferences themselves did not directly drive changes in the plant community. Tortoises successfully dispersed the seeds of an endemic palm, which in time may increase the extent of unique palm-rich habitat. We found no evidence that tortoises have increased the extent of plant species hypothesised to be part of a lost Mauritian tortoise grazed community. Synthesis and applications. Due to a negative correlation in tortoise and skink dietary preferences and minimal overlap in the most frequently consumed taxa, the presence of tortoises is unlikely to have detrimental impacts on Telfair's skinks. Tortoise presence is likely to be beneficial to skinks in the long term by increasing the extent of palm-rich habitat. Although tortoises are likely to play a role in controlling invasive plants, they are not a panacea for this challenge. After 7 years, tortoises have not resurrected a lost tortoise grazed community that we hypothesise might have existed in limited areas on the islet, indicating that further interventions may be required to restore this plant community

How many bird and mammal extinctions has recent conservation action prevented?

Aichi Target 12 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) aims to ‘prevent extinctions of known threatened species’. To measure its success, we used a Delphi expert elicitation method to estimate the number of bird and mammal species whose extinctions were prevented by conservation action in 1993 - 2020 (the lifetime of the CBD) and 2010 - 2020 (the timing of Aichi Target 12). We found that conservation prevented 21–32 bird and 7–16 mammal extinctions since 1993, and 9–18 bird and 2–7 mammal extinctions since 2010. Many remain highly threatened, and may still become extinct in the near future. Nonetheless, given that ten bird and five mammal species did go extinct (or are strongly suspected to) since 1993, extinction rates would have been 2.9–4.2 times greater without conservation action. While policy commitments have fostered significant conservation achievements, future biodiversity action needs to be scaled up to avert additional extinctions