Metadata Factsheet
1. Indicator name
Green Status of Species Index
2. Date Of Metadata Update
2022-11-01 12:00:00 UTC
3. Goals And Targets Addressed
3a. Goal
Goal A: The integrity of all ecosystems is enhanced, with an increase of at least 15% in the area, connectivity and integrity of natural ecosystems, supporting healthy and resilient populations of all species, the rate of extinctions has been reduced at least tenfold, and the risk of species extinctions across all taxonomic and functional groups, is halved, and genetic diversity of wild and domesticated species is safeguarded, with at least 90% of genetic diversity within all species maintained.
3b. Target
Target 4: Ensure all areas under agriculture, aquaculture and forestry are managed sustainably, in particular through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, increasing the productivity and resilience of these production systems.
4. Rationale
Extinction is what we want to avoid, recovery is what we want to achieve. The IUCN Green Status of Species (GSS) is a simple, science-driven metric that assesses the conservation state of a species in terms of progress towards recovery. The Green Status of Species is an integral part of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and its development was led by an international team under the auspices of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.
An index based on the GSS is currently proposed for inclusion as a headline indicator for Target 4, but also has relevance to Goal A, as follows: Relevance to Goal A: While extinctions and extinction risk can be measured by metrics based on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and species abundance based on the Living Planet Index, the health and resilience of species’ populations (or viability) will be best measured by metrics based on the new GSS Index.
Relevance to Target 4: The extinction of some species can only be prevented through also implementing urgent and targeted species-specific recovery actions. The GSS Index will allow the contribution of such actions to species recovery over time to be measured and quantified.
The Green Status of Species Index is still in development and does not currently meet all the assessment criteria (as determined at the Bonn workshop). Specifically, although the Green Status of Species methodology itself has undergone extensive testing and validation, and been peer-reviewed, and has been applied to a varied group of over 200 species, currently only 37 assessments are available on the IUCN Red List website. Hence, there is a need for substantial and rapid investment to rapidly grow the number of GSS assessments. Further, the methodological approach for tracking genuine change in species recovery over time in Green Status Assessments to produce the Green Status of Species Index remains to be peer-reviewed and fully tested. Nonetheless, it will be a powerful and complementary indicator to the well-established Red List Index once available.
5. Definitions Concepts And Classifications
5a. Definition
The IUCN Green Status of Species Index (GSSI) measures change in the species recovery level, and the change in the impact of conservation actions on species, aggregated across groups of species. It is based on the IUCN Green Status of Species assessments published on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (www.iucnredlist.org). It is expressed as a percentage and calculated as the change in the averages of the GSS metrics over time for a group of species.
The definitions of species recovery and conservation impact are given in the IUCN Green Status of Species: A global standard for measuring species recovery and assessing conservation impact, version 2.0 (IUCN 2021), and associated guidelines, which draw from publications developing, supporting, and testing the IUCN global standard (Akçakaya et al. 2018, 2020; Stephenson et al. 2019; Grace et al. 2019, 2021a, 2021b, 2022).
5b. Method Of Computation
Conceptually, the derivation of the IUCN Green Status of Species Index will be similar to the IUCN Red List Index. Just as it is possible to track genuine deteriorations and improvements in the extinction risk of species over time by means of the Red List Index, it will be possible to track genuine changes in species’ recovery over time by means of the Green Status of Species Index.
The index is calculated for a point in time by first assessing the Green Status of each species at that time point according to the IUCN Green Status of Species global standard (IUCN 2021), and then averaging the Species Recovery Score and the Conservation Impact metrics (defined in IUCN 2021) across the species.
The GSS assesses the state of species in nature by defining a fully recovered state and comparing the species’ current state to it. To be assessed as fully recovered, a species must be viable and ecologically functional in all parts of its indigenous range, including those areas occupied prior to human impacts. Species are assigned a “Green Score”, ranging from 0-100%, where 100% equates to fully recovered. Green Scores are calculated by dividing a species’ indigenous range into subunits.
The species state is then assessed as either absent, present, viable or functional within each spatial subunit. These are appropriately weighted and used to calculate a score. Green Scores ensure that viability, functionality and representation are considered in assessing the recovery status of a species.
A Green Status of Species Index would track the recovery scores of a group of species across multiple time points—e.g., 2025, 2030, 2040, and 2050—providing information on whether we are globally moving closer or further away from recovery goals. The Green Status of Species Index will be developed in two ways: 1) using comprehensively assessed groups of species (which initially will be possible for only small taxonomic groups), and 2) using a sampled approach similar to that developed for the IUCN Red List. Development of the GSSI will be guided by the methods used to develop Red List Indexes to ensure comparability across all Red List metrics.
5c. Data Collection Method
The methods are described in https://www.iucnredlist.org/resources/green-status-assessment-materials
5d. Accessibility Of Methodology
The methodology for the Green Status of Species is peer-reviewed and readily accessible. See references listed in section 11, and https://www.iucnredlist.org/about/green-status-species The methodology for the Green Status of Species Index is not yet peer-reviewed or available.
Work is also ongoing to support application of the Green Status of Species methodology at regional and national levels (similar to the IUCN Red List).
5e. Data Sources
The GSSI is based on data from Green Status of Species assessments published on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (www.iucnredlist.org)
5f. Availability And Release Calendar
The GSSI is currently in development. The year of availability is not currently known, though the aim is to be fully developed and available by 2025 at the latest
5g. Time Series
The GSSI is currently in development. However, it is anticipated that the development will include backcasting to estimate the index at relevant dates in the past to avoid the need to wait for future reassessments. This methodological approach has been used successfully in producing Red List Indices for some groups (amphibians and corals).
5h. Data Providers
Data providers for the GSSI are the assessors who contribute to Green Status of Species assessments published on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (www.iucnredlist.org).
5i. Data Compilers
Compilation and reporting of the GSSI at the global level is conducted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
5j. Gaps In Data Coverage
At least initially, the GSSI will only be available for a limited number of smaller taxonomic groups (albeit covering diverse systems and taxa) and for a sampled set of species that will be stratified to achieve appropriate taxonomic and geographic coverage.
5k. Treatment Of Missing Values
6. Scale
6a. Scale Of Use
The indicator is currently in development. When completed, it will be available at the global level, and the methodology will be available to produce indicators at national or regional levels.
6b. National Regional Indicator Production
The indicator is currently in development. When completed, it will be available at the global level, and the methodology will be available for regional and national use.
6c. Sources Of Differences Between Global And National Figures
6d. Regional And Global Estimates And Data Collection For Global Monitoring
6d.1 Description Of The Methodology
6d.2 Additional Methodological Details
6d.3 Description Of The Mechanism For Collecting Data From Countries
7. Other Mea And Processes And Organisations
7a. Other MEA And Processes
7b. Biodiversity Indicator Partnership
Yes
8. Disaggregation
The indicator can be disaggregated by species group/taxon, depending on the availability of a sufficient number of assessments.
9. Related Goals Targets And Indicators
The IUCN Green Status of Species is a new, formally recognized part of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and is therefore methodologically linked to the Red List Index.
10. Data Reporter
10a. Organisation
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
10b. Contact Person
Craig Hilton-Taylor (craig.hilton-taylor@iucn.org),
Molly Grace (molly.grace@biology.ox.ac.uk),
Barney Long (blong@rewild.org),
Reşit Akçakaya (resit.akcakaya@stonybrook.edu)
11. References
Akçakaya, H.R., E.L. Bennett, T.M. Brooks, M.K. Grace, A. Heath, C. Hilton-Taylor, M. Hoffmann, D.A. Keith, B. Long, D.P. Mallon, E. Meijaard, E.J. Milner-Gulland, A. Rodrigues, J.P. Rodriguez, P.J. Stephenson, S.N. Stuart, & R.P. Young. 2018. Quantifying species recovery and conservation success to develop an IUCN Green List of Species. Conservation Biology 32:1128–1138. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13112
Akçakaya, H.R., A. Rodrigues, D.A. Keith, E.J. Milner-Gulland, E.W. Sanderson, S. Hedges, D.P. Mallon, M.K. Grace, B. Long, E. Meijaard, P.J. Stephenson. 2020. Assessing ecological function in the context of species recovery. Conservation Biology 34:561-571 https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13425
Grace, M., H.R. Akçakaya, E. Bennett, C. Hilton-Taylor, B. Long, E.J. Milner-Gulland, R. Young, M. Hoffmann. 2019. Using historical and paleoecological data to inform ambitious species recovery targets. Philosophical Transactions B. 374:20190297 https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019-0297
Grace M.K., and 201 other authors. 2021. Testing a global standard for quantifying species recovery and assessing conservation impact. Conservation Biology 35:1833–1849.https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13756
Grace, M.K., H.R. Akçakaya, J.W. Bull, C. Carrero, K. Davies, S. Hedges, M. Hoffmann, B. Long, E.M.N. Lughadha, G.M. Martin, F. Pilkington, M.C. Rivers, R.P. Young, and E.J. Milner-Gulland. 2021. Building robust, practicable counterfactuals and scenarios to evaluate the impact of species conservation interventions using inferential approaches. Biological Conservation 261:109259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109259
Grace, M.K., H.R. Akçakaya, E.L. Bennett, M. Boyle, C. Hilton-Taylor, M. Hoffmann, D. Money, A. Prohaska, R. Young, R. Young, B. Long. 2022. The impact of spatial delineation on the assessment of species recovery outcomes. Diversity 14, 742. https://doi.org/10.3390/d14090742
IUCN. 2021. IUCN Green Status of Species: A global standard for measuring species recovery and assessing conservation impact. Version 2.0. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2021.02.en
Stephenson, P.J., M. Grace, H.R. Akçakaya, A. Rodrigues, B. Long, D. Mallon, E. Meijaard, J.P. Rodriguez, R. Young, T. Brooks, C. Hilton-Taylor. 2019. Defining indigenous species range to account for geographic and taxonomic variation in the history of human impacts. Conservation Biology 33: 1211–1213 https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13400
12. Graphs And Diagrams
Figure 1. The Red List categorizes how close to extinction a species is, the IUCN Green Status of Species
categorizes how close to fully recovered a species is
Figure 2. The IUCN Green Status of Species Conservation Impact Metrics
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