One of the most important international nature protection documents is the
International Red List. It is based on a detailed extinction risk and rates
analysis of all species. This analysis is carried out by IUCN's SSC and its
outcomes recorded in the Action Plan series.
The SSC Action Plan series assesses the conservation status of species and
their habitats, and outlines conservation priorities. It's one of the world's
most authoritative sources of species-related conservation information available
to natural resource managers, conservationists and decision makers around
the world.
Why Rodents?
The current project will conduct similar research on rodents of the former
USSR. Rodents were chosen because they play a very important role in ecosystems,
but wildlife protection specialists in the fUSSR have never researched them
as a class.
Objectives:
· to demonstrate the importance of applying new criteria for endangered
species elaborated by SSC/IUCN;
· to demonstrate an opportunity to use data on species distribution as indicators
of endangered ecosystems;
· to pinpoint conservation hot spots on the basis of a detailed and accurate
analysis of rodents' distribution ranges in the fUSSR, to be used for projecting
ecological networks.
Major positive results:
· a network of 34 experts from 11 former Soviet Republics has been established;
· portraits
of over 170 species have been compiled and placed on the BCC's web-site (to
be soon translated into English);
· a precedent for the application of new international criteria established
by SSC/IUCN to endangered species and joint work with them has been created.
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