WCC 2020 Res 061 - Activity Report

Support for developing National Red Lists of Ecosystems to support ecosystem management continued, with release of RLE for Mozambique (led by Wildlife Conservation Society), progress on global RLEs for mangove and coral reef ecosystems, and national RLEs in various stages of development in India, Malaysia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Canada.

Provita continued to maintain the Red List of Ecosystems website, with contemporary news stories and an increasing library of RLE resources
Prof Keith and Dr Ferrer attended the African Proetected Area Congress and convened a session on contributions of the RLE to design and management of African Protected Areas. A paper was subsequently published https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/cobi.14169

Multiple fundraising activities underway including concept notes submitted to GEF. Successful funding for projects for global mangrove RLE (IUCN secretariat), GEO Ecosystem Atlas (CEM) and Australian ecosystem inventory (CEM, Aust Research Council)

Prof Nicholson represented IUCN on the UN Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Biodiversity Indicators for the Global Biodiversity Monitoring Frameowrk. RLE was adopted as Headline Indicator A1 of the GBF monitoring framework and the recommendations of AHTEG for implementation are currently before SBSTA.
Prof Keith was invited to prepare a proposal for adoption of the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology into the UN Family of Statistical Classifications, providing a standard frameowrk for countries to report on the status of their ecosystems. The UN Statistics Commission adpoted the GET into the Family in March 2024.

IUCN has partnered with GEO in a major new initiative to develop the Global Ecosystem Atlas. This will serve the spatial data required for countries to implement their contributions to the Global Biodiversity Framework. The RLE Thematic Group has highly influential roles on the scientific development of the Atlas, with Dr Nick Murray the scientific lead for development of the Atlas prototype and Prof David Keith colead of the Atlas Science and Technical Committee.

The RLE Committee for Scientific Standards was convened to undertake an update of the technical guidelines for the application of the Red List of Ecosystems categories and criteria. The revision is complete and publication of Guidelines v2.0 is in progress.
Prof Emily Nicholson led a review of the role of the RLE in implementing the UN Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-02320-5