Appendix I. Important Information about the Data used in IBAT Country Profiles

I. On Species

This data contained in IBAT Country Profiles is based on all species assessed at the global level, for The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ (The IUCN Red List). The IUCN Red List is widely recognized as the most comprehensive, objective global approach for evaluating the conservation status of plant and animal species. The goal of The IUCN Red List is to provide information and analyses on the status, trends and threats to species in order to inform and catalyse action for biodiversity conservation.

Red List Categories:

• EX - Extinct
• EW - Extinct in the Wild
• CR - Critically Endangered
• EN - Endangered
• VU - Vulnerable
• NT - Near Threatened
• LC - Least Concern
• DD - Data Deficient

A taxon is Data Deficient when there is inadequate information to make a direct, or indirect, assessment of its risk of extinction based on its distribution and/or population status.

The high profile, standards and scientific integrity of The IUCN Red List are maintained in the following ways:

• The scientific aspects underpinning The IUCN Red List are regularly published in the scientific literature (see examples cited in the Publications section);
• The assessment process is clear and transparent;
• The listings of species are based on correct use of the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria and are open to challenge and correction;
• All assessments are appropriately documented and supported by the best scientific information available;
• The data are freely available to all potential users subject to specified Terms of Use;
• The IUCN Red List is updated regularly, but not all species are reassessed with each update – many assessments simply roll-over from the previous edition; and
• Analyses of the findings of The IUCN Red List are regularly published, approximately every four to five years.

Note that since extinction risk has been evaluated for less than 5% of the world's described species, The IUCN Red List cannot provide a direct estimate for how many of the planet's species are threatened. However, overall figures for numbers of species currently assessed in each Red List Category, along with an indication of which groups have been comprehensively evaluated is provided.

The species groups assessed are biased towards terrestrial ecosystems. Among the better-documented species, there is also a strong bias towards animals, rather than plants, but steps are underway to rectify these biases.

As many species have not been assessed fully at the global level, the data presented here may differ from those presented in particular national red lists. This is because some species have been assessed at global but not national scale, or vice versa, while others may vary in their extinction risk across different parts of their range and may therefore be more or less threatened in a particular country than they are at the global scale. The National Red Lists website provides access to national and regional Red List data. The website includes a searchable species database, a library of downloadable documents, a network of individuals involved in national/regional Red Listing around the world, and a discussion forum for specific queries.

Only a small number of the world's plant, fungi and animal species have been assessed. Some plants are not included in the current IUCN Red List, as were assessed using older versions of the IUCN Red List assessment system. For plants, it is best to also check the 1997 plants Red List publication.

The information on The IUCN Red List is updated approximately twice a year. The numbers of species listed in each category in The IUCN Red List change each time it is updated. This means that: the information is always growing and becoming more robust; the numbers of species presented my change; any species may move to a different category of threat because of improved knowledge of genuine improvement or deterioration in status; and taxonomic revisions may cause the total number of recognised species within a group to change.

All of the figures provided here are for species only (i.e., they do not include subspecies, varieties or geographically isolated subpopulations or stocks). More detailed analyses can be found on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species website.

Information about Specific Data Outputs in

Species Assessed for Extinction Risk (Table 1)

The table provides totals of all assessed species in each IUCN Red List category by major taxonomic group, irrespective of whether the group has been comprehensively assessed.

Species Assessment Table (Table 1)

The table reflects certain native distributions, i.e. the table exclude all uncertain distributions, introduced species and vagrant records in the database for The IUCN Red List, where: introduced species are species that are/were introduced to a country, which are outside of their historical distribution range, through either direct or indirect human activity; vagrant species are species that are or were recorded in a country once or sporadically, but are known to not be native to the area; and uncertain distributions include countries where the presence of a certain species has not been confirmed, even though suitable habitat exists there, and countries where records of the species exist but require verification.

Red List Index (figure 1)

Full details of the methodology can be found at https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-15-05-01.pdf. The index reflects trends in survival probability (the inverse of extinction risk) for mammals, birds, amphibians, corals and cycads, and so does not perfectly represent all taxonomic groups in the country. Additional taxonomic groups, in particular covering marine and plant groups will be added in next few years.

The Red List Indices for each taxonomic group for each year are modelled to take into account various sources of uncertainty: (i) Data Deficiency: Red List categories (from Least Concern to Extinct) are assigned to all Data Deficient species, with a probability proportional to the number of species in non-Data Deficient categories for that taxonomic group. (ii) Extrapolation uncertainty: although Red List Indices are extrapolated linearly based on the slope of the closest two assessed point, there is uncertainty about how accurate this slope may be. To incorporate this uncertainty, rather than extrapolating deterministically, the slope used for extrapolation is selected from a normal distribution with a probability equal to the slope of the closest two assessed points, and standard deviation equal to 60% of this slope. (iii) Temporal variability: the ‘true’ RLI likely changes from year to year, but because assessments are repeated only at multi-year intervals, the precise value for any particular year is uncertain. To make this uncertainty explicit, the Red List Index value for a given taxonomic group in a given year is assigned from a moving window of five years, centered on the focal year. The 95% confidence intervals are calculated from 1,000 replications of a bootstrapping procedure taking into account these various sources of uncertainty. Assessment uncertainty cannot yet be incorporated into the index.

Species are not equally threatened across their ranges, and not all species occurring within a country are of equal global significance. The Red List Index presented here takes this into account by weighting each species occurring in the country by the proportion of its global distribution occurring in a country; hence, nationally endemic species contribute much more than species with very large distributions spanning many countries or continents. While national red lists based on assessments of extinction risk at the national scale may provide more sensitive measures of status within a particular country, national red list indices based on repeated national red lists may show trends driven by changes in the status of species within the country that are of trivial global significance (because they have very large global ranges). In the context of the Aichi Targets and Sustainable Development Goals, such national red list indices may therefore be misleading (for example, in an extreme case reflecting local improvements in the status of abundant widespread species while masking extinctions of species found nowhere else outside the country). For these reasons, the Red List Index presented here represents a national disaggregation of the global index, but weighting each species by the national responsibility for its conservation (i.e. the proportion of its global distribution within the country). A further advantage of this approach is that it reflects trends over two decades for five taxonomic groups: no countries have repeated national red lists spanning such a duration and with such taxonomic breadth.

Number of species by threat type

This information includes all assessed species (not only those comprehensively assessed) that have been classified as threatened (i.e. assessed as being CR, EN or VU). Direct threats are the proximate human activities or processes that have impacted, are impacting, or may impact the status of the taxon being assessed (e.g., unsustainable fishing or logging). Direct threats are synonymous with sources of stress and proximate pressures. A full list of definitions for each threat category can be found here: https://www.iucnredlist.org/technical-documents/classification-schemes/threats-classification-scheme.

The threats listed are those known to impact the species or taxonomic groups at the global level, but it should be noted that they may not impact populations in all countries in which the species occurs. For more information about the nature of the impacts on threats and the threat classification scheme see https://www.iucnredlist.org/technical-documents/classification-schemes/threats-classification-scheme

II. On Protected Areas

The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is widely seen as the most comprehensive global database on terrestrial and marine Protected Areas. It is compiled by UNEP-WCMC from around 500 data providers from governmental and non-governmental organizations. Protected Area statistics in this report might differ from those reported officially by governments. To better understand these differences please go to: https://www.protectedplanet.net/c/calculating-protected-area-coverage.

The data submitted to the WDPA must comply with WDPA Data Standards which ensure consistency and comparability. However, a wide range of sources will work at different scales, use various techniques, and will have with different capacity and resources to digitize Protected Area boundaries. This results in a great variation in accuracy and resolution. Although the WDPA team works with data providers to improve the quality of the data submitted, issues with spatial accuracy of the WDPA data should be expected. In addition, delays in updating datasets from specific countries are expected as several interactions with official data providers are needed to include a Protected Area boundary in the WDPA from when it is designated or proposed or a dataset is updated by a country.

Using the field status year to determine changes in Protected Area coverage over time

Each version of the WDPA is the most accurate understanding of the world's Protected Areas as of the date of that version's release. Protected Areas can be added, removed or change in a tabular (change in their name, designation type, IUCN Category, etc.) and/or spatial context (e.g. change of the boundaries of a site) between versions of the WDPA. To assess Protected Area coverage over time using the WDPA field 'STATUS_YEAR', it is important to note the following:

• The 'STATUS_YEAR' field records the date of Protected Area designation at the time of the version of the WDPA used.
• This analysis can only show an increase in coverage over time
• This analysis does not include sites which have previously been in the WDPA but have been removed for any reason, e.g. degazettement.
• This analysis does not capture how existing sites used to be, e.g. before an expansion to their boundaries.

Therefore, using the 'STATUS_YEAR' field quantifies the amount of area added to the world's Protected Area estate, per year, for those Protected Areas that are, as of the date of version of the WDPA used, known about and considered Protected Areas. Thus this analyses might not provide accurate information on when a given area has been protected for the first time.

More information about how the WDPA is compiled, collated, managed and disseminated, including the WDPA Data Standards, and recommendation on how to use and cite the database are available in the WDPA User Manual at https://wcmc.io/WDPA_Manual.

III. On Key Biodiversity Areas

Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs): KBAs are identified using a set of criteria in the Global Standard for the Identification of Key Biodiversity Areas (IUCN 2016). These criteria relate to threatened taxa and ecosystems, geographically restricted species and ecosystems, ecological integrity, demographic aggregations, ecological refugia, source populations and sites of high irreplaceability. These criteria have been developed building off those used to identify existing networks of subsets of KBAs, including in particular Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs), Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) sites, and, for some countries, KBAs identified through hotspot ecosystem profiles developed with support from the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF). Details for each of these are given below. Data on KBAs are held in the World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas, managed by BirdLife International on behalf of the KBA Partnership.

Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs): IBAs are identified using data on birds applied to four criteria relating to threatened species, restricted-range species, biome-restricted species and congregatory species (BirdLife International 2014). IBAs have been identified mainly through bottom-up multi-stakeholder processes coordinated by national BirdLife Partners. IBAs have been identified in terrestrial, freshwater and marine realms in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, but key remaining gaps include terrestrial New Zealand and New Guinea (Indonesia and Papua New Guinea). Spatial (GIS) data on the boundaries of each IBA have been drawn largely from data provided directly by BirdLife Partners, but also includes some data digitised by the BirdLife Secretariat or consolidated from third party sources where other information was not available. Polygons for IBAs are available for >95% of sites, but the exceptions are represented in a separate dataset by a point showing its approximate location.

Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE): AZE sites hold the last remaining population of one or more highly threatened species. They are defined as discrete areas that contain at least 95% of the known global population of an Endangered (EN) or Critically Endangered (CR) species at least one life-history segment (e.g. breeding or wintering). The loss of an AZE site would result in the global extinction of a species in the wild. AZE sites have been identified for mammals, birds, amphibians, some reptile groups (Testudines, Crocodylia, and Iguanidae), conifers and corals.

KBAs identified through CEPF hotspot ecosystem profiles. These sites have been identified using the criteria of Langhammer et al (2007) relating to vulnerability (presence of globally threatened species) and irreplaceability (restricted range species, those with large but clumped distributions, globally significant congregations, globally significant source populations and bioregionally restricted assemblages). They have typically been applied using the first of these criteria to terrestrial vertebrates, and in some cases selected plant and invertebrate groups. A small number of other KBAs have been identified through other initiatives using the Langhammer et al (2007) criteria.