18.3.6—Conservation organisations

The IUCN assesses the conservation status of animal and plant species worldwide. Its classification uses evidence about population numbers, threats and risks to those populations; scientists use data and modelling to estimate the appropriate category, which is made public through the IUCN Red List.

Use the assessment chain:

1. Gather evidence about population size or trend, distribution, threats and risks, noting whether the evidence is sufficient.
2. Use the available data and modelling to assess the species against the IUCN classification system.
3. Record the resulting conservation-status category and communicate it through the public Red List.
4. Use the status assessment to identify species needing conservation attention and to support coordinated decisions about safeguarding them.
5. Continue collecting evidence and update the assessment as populations, threats or data quality change.

More severe population decline, stronger threats or greater risk can support a more urgent conservation-status assessment. A status category is therefore an evidence summary used to guide priorities; it is not itself a recovery programme or a guarantee that a species will be protected.

Do not invent a numerical threshold or treat one observation as a complete assessment. The SME page explicitly allows insufficient-data outcomes and states that scientists continually review and update species status, so scale, evidence quality and uncertainty matter. IUCN status assessment is distinct from CITES trade controls and from the habitat, invasive-species and assisted-reproduction methods in neighbouring cards.