From Red to Green: Synthesizing research to create a metric of species conservation success for multiple end-users (Open KE Fellowship)

《国际自然保护联盟濒危物种红色名录》在记录和监测世界各地的生物多样性状况方面发挥着重要作用，是备受尊敬的科学准确物种信息的全球储存库。对于世界各地的保护从业者来说，这是一本宝贵的指南，也被用来帮助指导企业制定减轻对受威胁物种的影响的计划。红色名单建立在国家自然资源中心资助的研究基础上，反映了物种灭绝和崩溃的风险，以及这种风险是如何随着时间的推移而变化的。然而，尽管灭绝风险的真正改善应该被庆祝为保护的成功，但这可能只是实现更雄心勃勃的保护目标的第一步。因此，提出了一份IUCN物种绿色名录，以记录保护成功的所有方面，包括物种在生态系统中的功能，并激励保护行动，以实现完全恢复和防止未来的衰退。绿色清单将成为现有红色清单的一部分，在完善的红色清单框架内提供关键的新信息。一旦通过这项拟议的奖学金进行了彻底的测试和完善，绿色清单将提供一个易于理解、科学合理的评分系统，传达特定物种距离其保护最佳状态有多近，以及过去的保护行动如何为物种恢复做出贡献，以及如果这些保护行动继续、改变或停止(反事实情景)，预期的结果将是什么。牛津大学将在此次奖学金期间接待我，该大学一直在开展由国家自然资源中心资助的关于物种在生态系统功能中的作用以及评估保护成功的反事实方法的研究。我将把这些新的科学进展转化为一种对包括政府、企业和非政府组织在内的利益相关者有用的形式的绿色清单协议。这将包括：与世界自然保护联盟物种专家小组合作，测试关于各种物种和分类群体的绿色名单初步议定书；为物种绿色名单用户指南作出贡献；通过纳入测试、专家小组和国际自然保护联盟绿色名单工作队的反馈，帮助调整该议定书；领导编写关于这一概念的宣传材料和知识交流产品。联合国已宣布2011-2020年为“生物多样性十年”，并因此确定了许多生物多样性目标，这些目标依赖于对物种保护状况的客观评估。绿色清单将提供一个框架，以科学合理、易于理解的方式评估保护状况。绿色清单是衡量保护成功的雄心勃勃的一步，反映了生物多样性十年的雄心勃勃和前瞻性。英国长期以来一直站在保护科学的前沿，英国政府投资于具有全球影响的保护政策和行动。绿色名单将沿袭这一传统。该项目以保护科学的最佳实践为基础，目标是接触到世界各地的保护经理和政策制定者，真正反映了NERC的愿景，即将环境科学置于对我们星球负责任管理的核心位置。与其他知识交流学者互动的机会将大大增加绿色清单的潜在影响，因为他们提供了与商业和政策部门的最终用户以及直接参与实地保护的人分享这项工作的机会，这些专家带来了商业、决策等领域的专门知识。

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species plays a fundamental role in documenting and monitoring the status of biodiversity worldwide and is the respected "go-to" global repository of scientifically-accurate information on species. It is an invaluable guide for conservation practitioners around the world, and has also been used to help guide businesses in their plans for mitigating impacts on threatened species. The Red List is founded on NERC-funded research and reflects species' risk of extinction and collapse, as well as how this risk has changed over time. However, while a genuine improvement in extinction risk should be celebrated as a conservation success, it may only be a first step towards achievement of a more ambitious conservation goal. Therefore, an IUCN Green List of species has been proposed to document all dimensions of conservation success, including species function within the ecosystem, and incentivise conservation action towards full recovery and preventing future declines. The Green List will become part of the existing Red List, providing crucial new information within the well-established Red List framework. Once it has been thoroughly tested and refined through this proposed fellowship, the Green List will provide an easy-to-understand, scientifically sound scoring system that communicates how close a given species is to its conservation optimum, as well as how past conservation actions have contributed to species recovery and what the expected outcome will be if those conservation actions continue, change, or are stopped (counterfactual scenarios). The University of Oxford, which will host me during this fellowship, has been carrying out NERC-funded research on the role of species in ecosystem function and counterfactual approaches to assessing conservation success. I will translate these new scientific advances to create a Green Listing protocol in a form that is useful to stakeholders including governments, businesses, and NGOs. This will include: testing initial protocols on Green Listing on a wide variety of species and taxonomic groups in partnership with IUCN Species Specialist Groups; contributing to user guidelines for Green Listing of species; helping to adapt the protocol by incorporating feedback from testing, Specialist Groups and the IUCN Green List Task Force; and leading the preparation of communication materials and knowledge exchange products on the concept. The United Nations has declared 2011-2020 to be the "Decade on Biodiversity" and as such has identified many biodiversity targets that rely on an objective evaluation of species' conservation status. The Green List would provide the framework to evaluate conservation status in a scientifically sound, easily understood way. The Green List is an ambitious step forward in measuring conservation success, mirroring the ambitious and forward-thinking nature of the Decade on Biodiversity. The UK has long been on the forefront of conservation science and the British government has invested in conservation policy and actions with global impact. The Green List will follow in that tradition. This project, with its basis in best practice in conservation science and the goal of reaching conservation managers and policymakers worldwide, truly reflects NERC's vision "to place environmental science at the heart of responsible management of our planet". The opportunity to interact with other Knowledge Exchange Fellows, who bring expertise in the areas of business, policymaking, and more, will greatly increase the potential impact of the Green List by providing opportunities to share this work with end-users in the business and policy sectors as well as with those directly involved in on-the-ground conservation.