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The helps us to understand the extinction risk of species at global to national scales. After completing the assessment against a set of criteria, a species is placed into one of ������ϲʿ�������ֳ�ֱ�� Red List categories. Of these categories, Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable are considered ‘threatened’ categories. In 2015, belonging to seven animal groups (Table). This exercise has alarmingly put 390 species in threatened categories. In other words, 24% of evaluated species in Bangladesh are now on the brink of extinction.

Calculated based on the ������ϲʿ�������ֳ�ֱ�� Red List, the Red List Index (RLI) goes one step further. The RLI expresses the extinction risk of a particular group of species, globally or regionally, by a number between ‘1’ and ‘0’. Here, ‘1’ is the best-case scenario, where all species of a group are out of extinction danger or they are in the Least Concern category. On the other hand, ‘0’ is the worst-case scenario, where all species of a group are extinct from the world or the said region.

Once the RLI of a particular group is a couple of times over the years and plotted on a graph, the trend of the conservation status of that group can be seen. On a global scale, for example, the latest RLI for mammals is 0.86, birds 0.91, amphibians 0.75, and corals 0.81. Over the last couple of decades, the RLIs of these four groups have been showing alarming declining trends.

The last row of the following table contains the RLIs of seven animal groups of Bangladesh based on the . This is the first attempt to calculate the RLIs for Bangladesh. Here the RLIs of birds, amphibians, fishes and crustaceans are higher than 0.80, indicating relatively moderate conditions for these groups. But the RLI of mammals underlines serious conservation concerns as it is close to the 0.50 mark. The RLIs also indicate grim conditions for butterflies and reptiles.

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Table: Threatened status and Red List Indices of seven animal groups of Bangladesh.

*As per ������ϲʿ�������ֳ�ֱ�� Bangladesh (). **As per ������ϲʿ�������ֳ�ֱ�� Bangladesh (, p. 41). ***NA = Not assessed.

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The Red List Index 2015 of Bangladesh gives us a baseline to monitor the country’s journey to prevent extinction of threatened species. It will also be useful for the to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and for measuring the implementation of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan () and other national plans, like the Country Investment Plan () for Environment, Forestry and Climate Change. Although the overall picture drawn by the Red List Index 2015 is rather depressing, it gives us yet another basis to take larger, speedier and urgent actions to halt species extinction in Bangladesh.

As we go forward, conserving our species and ecosystems, it is important we update our national Red List of plants and animals on a regular basis. This in turn will help update the national RLIs. Without such updates, it is not possible to learn if our conservation actions are working or not. It is, therefore, important to put in place a national system to coordinate regular updates to the conservation status of country’s threatened species. No action is complete until its impacts have been measured.

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Acknowledgement: Many thanks are due to Monika Böhm of the Zoological Society of London for confirming the Red List Index calculations.

This article was contributed by , Programme Coordinator for ������ϲʿ�������ֳ�ֱ�� Bangladesh. Haseeb tweets as @hmirfanullah

Citation of this article: Irfanullah, H.M. (2017). Red List Indices of Seven Animal Groups of Bangladesh. ������ϲʿ�������ֳ�ֱ�� Blog. Accessed on <https://www.iucn.org/news/bangladesh/201704/blog-red-list-indices-seven-animal-groups-bangladesh>, on [access date]. ������ϲʿ�������ֳ�ֱ��, International Union for Conservation of Nature.