Red List assessments highlight the extinction risk faced by plant species in the wild, raise awareness for the need to protect them and aid prioritisation for plant conservation efforts.

Currently, plant species are under-represented on the IUCN Red List of Threatened species, limiting plant conservation action. Estimates indicate that as many as two in five plant species are threatened with extinction, due to a range of threats to plants and their habitats (habitat loss, overexploitation, disease, pollution, climate change, etc.). There are still many plant species that remain unassessed, which leads to plants being overlooked in national, regional and international conservation planning. BGCI works to address this information gap as one of the lead providers of plant conservation assessments to the IUCN Red List.

BGCI is a member of the IUCN Red List Partnership. We also host the secretariat for the IUCN/SSC Global Tree Specialist Group (GTSG), with whom we jointly coordinate the Global Tree Assessment (GTA). This initiative aims to provide conservation assessments for all the world’s tree species and is the largest biodiversity assessment ever undertaken at a species level. Over the last twenty years, our collaboration with GTSG has produced various Red List publications for trees and contributed thousands of IUCN Red List assessments for trees.

BGCI uses Red List information in monitoring and supporting ex situ collections of threatened plant species around the world through the Global Conservation Consortia and BGCI’s practical action, tree conservation programme.

BGCI offers Red List training through the GTA, building capacity for plant conservation including identifying threatened species and helping to build accessible information on threatened plant species online. We work with BGCI’s membership of over 700 botanic gardens and related institutions to promote plant Red List assessments and their use in conservation planning and public education.