The Red List still matters

摘要

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, better known as the IUCN, is officially venerable. At 60, it is the oldest global conservation organization. Indeed, its best-known product - the Red List, a compendium of species threatened with extinction - may seem a bit outdated in 2008. After all, the lesson of ecology is that species don't exist in isolation. They evolve and persist because of their relationships with all the other species around them. Conservationists these days usually talk about ecosystems as the units of interest, rather than species.