Haseeb

Md Irfanullah

FT^HEIUCN I Red List I turns 53 this year. Officially known as The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, it is basically a scientific tool that helps to check, if a species - plant or

animal, big or small, fast or slow - is at risk of becoming extinct from the face of the earth, forever.

The IUCN Red List puts available information on a species through several criteria. These criteria ask some questions, from speed of decline of the species in recent times, how widely it is

distributed, how many mature individuals are still left, to the chance of them vanishing over the next, say 100 years. Once the assessment is done by relevant experts for a species, the result is reviewed by other experts. This validation process is a vital step of The IUCN Red List preparation.

Then the species is put into one of Red List categories - from Least Concern to Extinct - on the basis of risk of extinction. Of these categories, Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable, are collectively called threatened categories. If a species is in any of these categories and nothing is done to reduce the threats it is facing, the species may climb up the extinction risk ladder. We may lose it from its host country or