[Coral-List] Coral species extinction risk

[David Obura]

Dear listers,

Just adding to Doug’s pointer in his reply below … yes, an updated Red List of Species is underway for reef corals under the IUCN Coral Specialist Group, with a fantastic team of over 80 assessors and scientists involved. Some results will hopefully be submitted and reviewed for release this year, but the full results will take time given we’re covering over 900 species now.

It will certainly not be perfect and all improvements can only help (and that is what science is for), particularly with greater regional/local nuance and specificity to guide decisions at relevant scales. But the Red List does more than any other index to motivate conservation commitment across natural systems globally, because of the effort that has gone into standardising it over 60 years or so (which also means it best suits ’average’ species that have been the focus of attention, which corals certainly are not).

However, we have a chance to leverage its strength for coral reefs broadly (and perhaps for particular species) and the people that depend on them, so we aim for that, while hoping that much more detailed species work can greatly improve actions that are more targeted for them. Meanwhile there’s a host of other work, both ecosystem and species-oriented that adds to quiver we have to both motivate and inform decisions.

But conservation and decisions can’t repeatedly wait for the mirage of perfect knowledge!! We must never make the perfect the enemy of the good.

all best, David

David Obura PhD, MBS
Chair, IUCN Coral Specialist Group
CORDIO East Africa, #9 Kibaki Flats, Kenyatta Beach, Bamburi Beach, P.O.BOX 10135 Mombasa 80101, Kenya
Email: dobura at cordioea.net  --  davidobura at gmail.com
Websites: www.cordioea.net  --   www.wiofutures.net  --  www.coralspecialistgroup.org
Mobile: +254-715 067417; skype dobura; Twitter @dobura
On 17 Feb 2022, 20:26 +0300, coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov, wrote:
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2022 21:23:40 -1100
> From: Douglas Fenner <douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>
> To: "Baird, Andrew" <andrew.baird at jcu.edu.au>
> Cc: "coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov" <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] FW: Coral species extinction risk
> Message-ID:
> <CAOEmEkHoip0b305AMQVyGZyOaUKTnfBVM9KggjkPE=XL=EU9rw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Another paper concluding that morphological traits that correlate with the
> rate of extinction in Caribbean coral fossils do not correlate to Red List
> status:
>
> Raja et al. 2021. Morphological traits of reef corals predict extinction
> risk but not conservation status.
> https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geb.13321
>
> I'd argue that most coral reef conservation programs and actions are not
> based on either the Red List or the US Endangered Species Act.
>
> I believe that a group is currently working on revising the Red Listings
> for corals.
>
> Cheers, Doug