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Accounting for conservation: Using the IUCN Red List Index to evaluate the
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DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2014.09.039

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 Biological Conservation 180 (2014) 84–96

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Biological Conservation
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon

Accounting for conservation: Using the IUCN Red List Index to evaluate
the impact of a conservation organization
R.P. Young a,b,⇑, M.A. Hudson a, A.M.R. Terry a, C.G. Jones b,c, R.E. Lewis a, V. Tatayah c, N. Zuël c,
S.H.M. Butchart d
a
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Les Augres Manor, Trinity, Jersey, Channel Islands, UK
b
Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Buckhurst Road, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 7PY, UK
c
Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, Grannum Road, Vacoas, Mauritius
d
BirdLife International, Wellbrook Court, Girton Road, Cambridge, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Global and project-level biodiversity indicators have received considerable attention, but indicators of
Received 31 March 2014 the conservation actions and impacts of programmes and institutions appear to be under-developed.
Received in revised form 22 September The IUCN Red List Index (RLI) has potential to be a useful indicator at an organizational-level to evaluate
2014
long-term impact of conservation on the extinction risk of species, thereby supporting institutional
Accepted 27 September 2014
decision-making and communications. However, it has not yet been tested for its utility in tracking
changes in extinction risk of a set of species targeted specifically by an individual conservation agency.
Here, we examine the feasibility of using the RLI as one metric of the conservation impact of the Durrell
Keywords:
IUCN Red List
Wildlife Conservation Trust, a conservation charity which runs multi-decadal programmes on a modest
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust number of globally threatened terrestrial vertebrate species. Of 17 target amphibian, bird and mammal
Conservation impact species, eight underwent improvements in Red List category (reductions in extinction risk) owing to
Evaluation conservation. This drove a 67% increase in the value of the Red List Index between 1988 and 2012. This
Biodiversity indicators contrasts with a 23% decline in a counterfactual RLI showing projected trends if conservation had been
Counterfactual withdrawn in 1988. For organizations that target sets of species with circumscribed geographic distribu-
tions and that are regularly assessed by the IUCN Red List, the RLI is a useful indicator for measuring and
demonstrating long-term conservation impact to technical and non-technical audiences.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction at) different levels of conservation implementation such as

Monitoring and evaluation is an increasingly integral compo-
nent of biodiversity conservation practice and policy. It enables
the setting of management and policy objectives, adaptation of
interventions, measurement of effectiveness and demonstration
of results to donors, supporters and other stakeholders (Yoccoz
et al., 2001; Stem et al., 2005; Sutherland et al., 2010; Jones
et al., 2013). It requires the development of individual and sets of
indicators, the desirable properties of which depend on the moni-
toring objectives (Jones et al., 2013). In general terms, however,
indicators should be scientifically robust, objectively verifiable,
practical to implement, cost-effective and easy to communicate
to non-technical as well as technically-minded audiences.
Indicators that are scalable between (and therefore informative
⇑ Corresponding author at: Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Les Augres
Manor, Trinity, Jersey, Channel Islands, UK.
E-mail address: richard.young@durrell.org (R.P. Young).
projects, programmes and institutions, nationally and globally
are particularly valuable. Whilst the development of indicators at
global and project-levels has received much attention (e.g. Conser-
vation Measures Partnership’s Open Standards for the Practice of
Conservation (CMP, 2004); Cambridge Conservation Forum’s
Harmonizing Measures of Conservation Success (Kapos et al.,
2008)), indicators of conservation actions, outputs and impacts at
programme and institutional-levels appear to be particularly
under-developed.
An important suite of policy-relevant indicators (Walpole et al.,
2009) was developed to measure biodiversity status, threats and
responses at the global-level in response to the Convention of Bio-
logical Diversity’s target to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by
2010 (and these indicators were used to demonstrate that it was
not met: Butchart et al., 2010). These formed the basis for a revised
set (CBD, 2010a) recommended for tracking progress against the
20 ‘Aichi Targets’ in the CBD’s Strategic Plan on Biodiversity
(CBD, 2010b). Among these, Target 12 states that ‘‘By 2020, the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2014.09.039
0006-3207/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 R.P. Young et al. / Biological Conservation 180 (2014) 84–96
extinction of known threatened species has been prevented and their
conservation status, particularly of those most in decline, has been
improved and sustained’’ (CBD, 2010b). The principal indicator used
to report on progress towards this target is the IUCN Red List Index
(RLI), which shows trends over time in the aggregate extinction
risk of sets of species (Butchart et al., 2004, 2005, 2007).
The RLI is calculated from data in the IUCN Red List of Threa-
tened Species (IUCN, 2013a), which is considered the most author-
itative and objective system for categorizing the extinction risk of
taxa (Hambler, 2004; de Grammont and Cuarón, 2006; Rodrigues
et al., 2006). Species are assessed against criteria with quantitative
thresholds for geographic range and population size, structure and
trends (IUCN, 2012) and then assigned to categories of extinction
risk (ranging from Least Concern through to Critically Endangered
and Extinct) . The RLI is based on the proportion of species that
move through the IUCN Red List categories between periodic
assessments, either away from or towards extinction, as a result
of genuine improvements or deterioration in status. It excludes
changes in category resulting from taxonomic revisions, changes
to the IUCN Red List criteria, or improvements in knowledge
(Butchart et al., 2004, 2006b, 2007). Index trends therefore relate
to how survival probability of a set of particular species changes
over time.
Global RLIs showing trends in extinction risk for all species
within a particular taxonomic group have been calculated for the
world’s birds (Butchart et al., 2004, 2010; BirdLife International,
2013b), amphibians (Stuart et al., 2004), mammals (Schipper
et al., 2008), and warm water reef-building corals (Carpenter
et al., 2008), bringing global attention to the concerning declines
in amphibians and corals in particular. However, there are no other
groups in which all species have been assessed against the IUCN
Red List criteria at least twice, although reassessments of all coni-
fers, cycads, mangroves, seagrasses, cartilaginous fishes, lobsters,
crayfish and freshwater crabs are planned or underway (IUCN,
2013b). Further, hyperdiverse invertebrate orders such Coleoptera,
Diptera and Hymenoptera are particularly under-represented
within the Red List (Cardoso et al., 2012), although regionally com-
prehensive assessments are now underway for some groups within
the latter, and for other invertebrate groups. To account for the
under-representation of these and other highly speciose and
poorly known taxonomic groups a sampled approach to red listing
has been developed (Baillie et al., 2008; Lewis and Senior, 2011),
through which a representative sample of species have been
assessed for reptiles, fishes, butterflies, dragonflies, and plants
(monocots, legumes, bryophytes and ferns), with other inverte-
brate assessments underway. Repeated assessments will allow
sampled RLIs to be developed in due course (IUCN, 2013b).
National RLIs have also been developed based on repeated
application of the Red List categories and criteria at a national scale
in order to assess national extinction risk, including for Australia
(Szabo et al., 2012), Sweden (Gärdenfors, 2010), Finland (Juslen
et al., 2013) and Paraguay (López, 2011). Global RLIs have been
disaggregated to show trends in different biogeographic realms
(Butchart et al., 2004, 2005), for different taxonomic groups
(BirdLife International, 2013a), in relation to different international
agreements (e.g. Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the Agreement
on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels: BirdLife
International, 2013a; UN Millennium Development Goals: UN,
2013), to show the contribution of different threats (Butchart,
2008; McGeoch et al., 2010; Almond et al., 2013), to assess the
effectiveness of protected areas (Butchart et al., 2012), and to
quantify the impact of conservation action (Hoffmann et al., 2010).
The latter study contrasted RLIs for birds, mammals and
amphibians with alternative ‘counterfactual’ RLIs that excluded
those improvements in status driven by conservation interventions
that led to species being downlisted to lower categories of
85
extinction risk. The magnitude of this difference underestimated
the impact of conservation as it does not take into account species
which would have deteriorated in status without conservation
efforts (Hoffmann et al., 2010). To fully evaluate the impact of con-
servation actions, it is necessary to ask what would have happened
if there had been no intervention, i.e. a counterfactual outcome
that is not observed (Ferraro and Pattanayak, 2006). A counterfac-
tual approach to programme impact evaluation has been broadly
lacking within the conservation sector, hampering efforts to prop-
erly assess the outcomes of conservation funding programmes,
intervention types, projects and institutions (Ferraro and
Pattanayak, 2006).
A number of impact evaluation methods are available to
disentangle the effects of the intervention from the wider
dynamics of the system, including randomized controlled trials
and quasi-experimental designs such as ‘‘natural’’ experiments
(e.g. Rosenzweig and Wolpin, 2000), instrumental variable meth-
ods (e.g. Edmonds, 2002) and matching (e.g. Clements et al.,
2014). However, many barriers to implementing such experimen-
tal approaches often exist, including programme resource levels,
ethical considerations, non-random allocation of treatment units,
lack of available controls, lack of data, among many others (see
Ferraro and Pattanayak, 2006). An alternative when these
experimental options are not possible is to construct counterfac-
tual scenarios based on target species population histories, threat
levels and the socio-economic and management context of the pro-
gramme just before the intervention commenced to predict the
counterfactual outcomes for species in the absence of conservation
(e.g. Butchart et al., 2006a).
Given its scalability and objectivity, the RLI has potential to be a
useful indicator at an institutional level to help assess organiza-
tional conservation impact, inform institutional decision-making,
and to provide evidence to donors and other institutional stake-
holders of the ‘return on their investment’. However, the RLI has
not yet been used to track extinction risk in a set of species tar-
geted specifically by an individual conservation agency, or with
reference to a counterfactual scenario in this way. Here, we aim
to test the feasibility of employing the RLI on a modestly sized
set of species as a metric of institutional-level conservation impact,
using Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust as a case study. This
international charity focuses on the conservation of globally threa-
tened terrestrial vertebrate species and is characterized by running
intensive multi-decadal conservation programmes on a relatively
small number of species. We discuss the benefits and limitations
of using the RLI for this purpose and examine in what contexts
the approach may be effective.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. The institution and species selection
The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (Durrell) is a non-profit
organization based in Jersey, Channel Islands, whose mission is
‘saving species from extinction’. It runs long-term field
programmes targeting globally threatened terrestrial vertebrate
species on island ecosystems (www.durrell.org). For example,
Durrell has been running programmes in Madagascar for over
25 years and in Mauritius for over 35 years. Over its history, Dur-
rell has led, or supported a national-level partner organization to
conduct, species-specific conservation interventions on 53 verte-
brate species, including fish (n = 1), amphibians (n = 2), reptiles
(n = 17), birds (n = 16) and mammals (n = 17), for which detailed
documentation exists. Durrell has also previously run field-based
programmes on approximately 10 other species which are insuffi-
ciently documented to consider in this study.
86 R.P. Young et al. / Biological Conservation 180 (2014) 84–96
Here, we define species-specific interventions as: (1) habitat
protection, management and restoration (that explicitly accounts
for the conservation needs of a target species, e.g. by establishing
or zoning a protected area based on the distribution of a target spe-
cies); (2) invasive alien species management (when conducted to
directly benefit a target species to e.g. reduce nest predation rates
by invasive species); (3) anti-poaching patrols to reduce rates of
poaching of target species; (4) reintroduction back to the wild
and translocation from wild populations to new sites; (5) supple-
mental feeding of target species; (6) nest site provision/manage-
ment through the establishment and maintenance of nest boxes;
(7) disease management where individuals of target species are
captured, examined and treated for infection if required; (8)
‘head-starting’, i.e. harvesting eggs or young individuals and cap-
tive rearing them through a risky life stage before release back to
the wild; and (9) captive breeding programmes (if animals are
released back into the wild as part of multi-annual releases com-
plemented by long-term in-situ management actions). More infor-
mation on the different conservations actions conducted for each
of the species included in this analysis is given in Table A1.
For the purposes of this study, we only included those species
for which Durrell or a national-level partner organization has
implemented long-term (>10 years), intensive and sustained con-
servation efforts across all or the majority (>50%) of the species’
range. National-level partners were either national NGOs or gov-
ernment departments with which Durrell forms a long-term stra-
tegic partnership to assist in the leadership and delivery of
conservation programmes and to develop institutional capacity.
The period of >10 years was chosen to be in line with the minimum
time period over which population trends are assessed under IUCN
Red List criteria (i.e. 10 years or 3 generations, whichever is
longer). We chose a standard threshold for determining long-term,
rather than using species-specific periods of three generation
lengths because, for the longer-lived species, programmes would
have to be run for nearly 30 years to be considered long-term. Fur-
ther, because trends from 10 years can be extrapolated to a rate
over three generations for application to the Red List criterion
thresholds, following IUCN (2012). The species in the study have
a mean generation length of 5.7 years, ranging between 3.6 (e.g.
Mauritius fody Foudia rubra) and 9.9 years (e.g. Black lion tamarin
Leontopithecus chrysopygus) years. Although the time period ideally
would be matched to a species’ life history, thereby allowing
enough time for population recovery that could be then reflected
in potential changes in Red List category, clearly there is a trade-
off between these biological factors and the reality and challenges
of running programmes for multiple decades. We also only
included species for which Durrell or national-level partner(s)
intervened across the majority of the species’ range to ensure we
can practically attribute any recovery to the conservation actions
implemented by Durrell and/or national-level partner. Here, we
define long-term, intensive and sustained conservation efforts as
one or more of the following:
1. A field conservation programme where Durrell staff are
based permanently on the ground leading the implementa-
tion of conservation actions for at least 10 years to reduce
directly the main threats to a species and thereby enable
its recovery.
2. A field conservation programme led by a national-level part-
ner(s) implementing conservation actions for more than
10 years to reduce directly the main threats to a species
and thereby enable its recovery, where two or more of the
following criteria are met:
(a) Durrell members of staff spend extended periods of time
(typically several weeks a year) on an annual or near-annual
basis on the ground with the national-level partner
providing technical support and/or strategic and scientific
guidance to help deliver conservation actions. These field
trips are supplemented by remote technical assistance in
the intervening periods.
(b) Durrell has provided significant levels of training to multi-
ple members of staff from the national-level partner(s) over
a multi-year period where the newly acquired skills will
clearly benefit effectiveness of conservation actions on the
ground.
(c) Durrell has run a conservation breeding programme (as part
of a wider conservation strategy for a species) that has pro-
vided animals for release back into the wild.
Of the 53 species, interventions were considered too short-term
for 17 species and were insufficiently intensive or sustained for 6
species. Thirteen of the remaining 30 species are reptiles and could
not be included in the RLI as the majority had been assessed only
once for the IUCN Red List, or were listed as Not Evaluated. There-
fore 17 species (1 amphibian, 7 mammals and 9 birds) were
included in the ‘Durrell RLI’ (see Table 1) from the countries of
Mauritius (Echo parakeet Psittacula eques; Mauritius fody; Mauri-
tius kestrel Falco punctatus; Olive white eye Zosterops chloronothos;
Pink pigeon Nesoenas mayeri; Rodrigues fody Foudia flavicans;
Rodrigues fruitbat Pteropus rodricensis; Rodrigues warbler Acro-
cephalus rodericanus), Madagascar (Alaotran gentle lemur Hapale-
mur alaotrensis; Madagascar teal Anas bernieri; Malagasy giant
jumping rat Hypogeomys antimena; Meller’s duck Anas melleri;
Narrow-striped mongoose Mungotictis decemlineata; Meller’s duck
A. melleri), Brazil (Black lion tamarin; Golden lion tamarin Leontop-
ithecus rosalia), India (Pygmy hog Porcula salvania), and Spain (Mal-
lorcan midwife toad Alytes muletensis) (see Fig. 1). The main threats
to the target species were invasive species, habitat loss driven by
agriculture and logging, and hunting, with the relative importance
of these threats varying between locations (see Fig. 2a and Table A1
for more information on the different threat types). The main
national-level partners (or international partners with permanent
national-level programmes) for each species are given in Table 1.
2.2. Calculating the Red List Index
Red List categories and the associated documentation were
taken from IUCN (2013a) and BirdLife International (2013b). The
RLIs were calculated following the methodology outlined in detail
by Butchart et al. (2007). In summary, index values were calculated
from the number of species in each IUCN Red List category in a
particular assessment year multiplied by a category weight (5 –
Extinct/Extinct in the wild; 4 – Critically Endangered; 3 – Endan-
gered; 2 – Vulnerable; 1 – Near Threatened; 0 – Least Concern).
The sum of the scores is then expressed as a fraction of the maxi-
mum possible sum (the score obtained if all species had gone
extinct) such that an overall score of 0 on the RLI would mean that
all species in the set are extinct, whereas a score of 1.0 equates to
all species being Least Concern, i.e. that none are expected to
become extinct in the near future. The numbers of species in each
category for years prior to the most recent assessment were
calculated based on the number of species that underwent genuine
status changes in each time period between assessments.
We followed Hoffmann et al. (2010) in determining which of
Durrell’s target mammal, bird and amphibian species have under-
gone Red List category changes owing to genuine improvements or
deteriorations in status. Hoffmann et al. (2010) used the current
Red List criteria and retrospectively applied them to all mammal,
bird and amphibian species back to the year in which they were
first assessed. This effectively excluded changes in the Red List cat-
egory of species and therefore the RLI trends that were as a result
of changes in Red List criteria rather than the changes to the status
Table 1
Species targeted by Durrell with information on the duration of the conservation intervention, Durrell’s role within the programme and the national-level partners. The current Red List category along with the estimated counterfactual
2012 Red List category, which assumes all Durrell-led or supported conservation actions had ceased in 1988, are indicated. For those species undergoing a genuine status change the relevant previous Red List categories are also given
(from Hoffmann et al. (2010)).
Species, programme duration and role of Durrell within partnership
Mallorcan midwife toad Alytes muletensis. 1985–2011. Partner in collaborative
recovery programme, leading captive breeding programme. Main local partner:
Conselleria d’Agriculture i Pesca (CDAP) of the Government of Mallorca
Mauritius fody Foudia rubra. 1989-ongoing. Strategic, technical and financial
support to main local partner, Mauritian Wildlife Foundation (MWF). Other local
partner: National Parks and Conservation Services of the Government of
Mauritius (NPCS)
Mauritius kestrel Falco punctatus 1976-ongoing. Programme partner focusing on in-
situ population management, captive breeding, research and capacity building;
provision of strategic, technical and financial support to MWF. Other local
partner: NPCS
Echo parakeet Psittacula eques. 1986-ongoing. Programme partner focusing on in-
situ population management, captive breeding, research and capacity building;
provision of strategic, technical and financial support to MWF. Other local
partner: NPCS
Madagascar teal Anas bernieri. 1992-ongoing. Lead implementing agency. Main
local partner: Regional Direction for Environment and Forests of the
Government of Madagascar (DREF)
Meller’s duck Anas melleri. 1988-ongoing. Lead implementing agency. Main local
partner: DREF
Olive white eye Zosterops chloronothos. 1990-ongoing. Strategic, technical and
financial support to MWF. Other local partner: NPCS
Pink pigeon Nesoenas mayeri. 1982-ongoing. Programme partner focusing on in-situ
population management, captive breeding, research and capacity building;
provision of strategic, technical and financial support to MWF. Other local
partner: NPCS
Current and counterfactual Red List categories. For Reasons for 2012 counterfactual Red List category
species undergoing status change the adjusted Red
List category history is given (from Hoffmann
et al., 2010)
‘80 ‘88 ‘94 ‘96 ‘00 ‘04 ‘08 ‘12 ‘12
CF
CR VU VU CR Captive breeding and release programmes would either not have happened or
occurred much later through another agency. Despite impacts from invasive
predators at several isolated populations, the species was found in 13 gorge
locations (Buley and Garcia, 1997) and is predicted to have persisted in the wild
until 2012. Probable criteria met: B2ab (iv)
CR EN EN CR Ceasing invasive predator control in Black River Gorges NP is likely to have led to
elevated nest predation rates and lower productivity. Captive breeding and release
onto Ile aux Aigrettes would not have happened. In 1988, the wild population was
estimated at 100–200 pairs and so we predict the population would have persisted
R.P. Young et al. / Biological Conservation 180 (2014) 84–96
until 2012 Safford and Jones (1998). Probable criteria met: D
CR EN VU VU EX Ceasing invasive predator control, nest site protection and nest box provision
would have resulted in high juvenile mortality and low productivity in remaining
Black River Gorges population. Ceasing captive breeding and release programme
means the reestablishment of a population in Bambous Mountains in eastern
Mauritius would not have happened. In 1988, an estimated 60 individuals were in
the wild (C. Jones, pers. comm.) and therefore we predicted it would have become
EX by 2012
CR EN EN EX Ceasing invasive predator control, provision of next boxes, and supplementary
feeding in Black River Gorges and stopping the captive breeding and release
programme would have resulted in very low productivity and downward
population trends. Only 25 birds were left in the wild in 1988 (C. Jones, pers. comm.)
and therefore we predicted the species would have become EX by 2012
EN EN Captive breeding would not have happened but this would not have affected wild
population as no animals released back to wild (from Durrell or any other
institution). No site protection and development of local management plans is
likely to have led to losses of local populations but no clear evidence the species
would have met any CR criteria. Probable criteria met: C2a (ii)
VU EN EN EN Captive breeding would not have happened but this would not have affected wild
population as no animals released back to wild (from Durrell or any other
institution). No site protection and development of local management plans is
likely to have led to losses of local populations but no clear evidence the species
would have met any CR criteria. Probable criteria met: C2a (ii)
CR CR Rat control in Black River Gorges would not have happened which may have led to
increased nest predation rates and decreased productivity in this single remaining
population. Captive breeding and release programmes would not have happened
and therefore a new population in Ile aux Aigrettes would not have been
established. In 1988 there were approximately 200 pairs in the wild and therefore
we predict the species would have persisted until 2012. Probable criteria met: C2aii
CR EN EN Ew Ceasing invasive predator control, supplementary feeding, Durrell-supported
captive breeding and release programmes would have resulted in very low
productivity in the single Black River Gorges population and downward trends.
Only 9–10 birds left in the wild in 1990 (Swinnerton, 2001; Swinnerton et al., 2004)
and therefore we predicted it would have become EW before 2012. By 1988, the
species was well established in captivity in at least seven zoological institutions
other than Durrell and Mauritius and so we assume it would have persisted in
captivity until 2012
(continued on next page)
87
Table 1 (continued)
Species, programme duration and role of Durrell within partnership
Rodrigues fody Foudia flavicans. 1982-ongoing. Programme partner focusing on
captive breeding, research and capacity building; provision of strategic,
technical and financial support to MWF. Other local partner: NPCS
Rodrigues warbler Acrocephalus rodericanus. 1982-ongoing. Programme partner
focusing on research and capacity building; provision of strategic, technical and
financial support to MWF. Other local partner: NPCS
Alaotran gentle lemur Hapalemur alaotrensis. 1990-ongoing. Lead implementing
agency. Main local partners: DREF; WWF Madagascar; Madagascar Wildlife and
Conservation
Malagasy giant jumping rat Hypogeomys antimena. 1998-ongoing. Lead
implementing agency. Main local partners: DREF; Fanamby; National Centre for
Training in Environment, Research and Forestry (CNFREF) of Madagascar
Narrow-striped mongoose Mungotictis decemlineata. 2002-ongoing. Lead
implementing agency. Main local partners: DREF; Fanamby; CNFREF
Rodrigues fruitbat Pteropus rodricensis. 1982-ongoing. Programme partner focusing
on captive breeding, research and capacity building; provision of strategic,
technical and financial support to MWF. Other local partner: NPCS
Pygmy hog Porcula salvania. 1996-ongoing. Lead implementing agency. Main local
partners: Ecosystems India; Assam Forest Department
Black lion tamarin Leontopithecus chrysopygus. 1985-ongoing, Partner in
collaborative recovery programme focusing on captive breeding and release,
and training staff from national-level partners. Main local partner: Instituto de
Pesquisas Ecológicas (IPÊ); International Committee for the Conservation and
Management of Lion Tamarins (ICCM)
Golden lion tamarin Leontopithecus rosalia. 1975-ongoing. Partner in collaborative
recovery programme focusing on captive breeding and release, and training staff
from national-level partners. Main local partner: University of Brasília;
International Committee for the Conservation and Management of Lion
Tamarins (ICCM)
88
Current and counterfactual Red List categories. For Reasons for 2012 counterfactual Red List category
species undergoing status change the adjusted Red
List category history is given (from Hoffmann
et al., 2010)
‘80 ‘88 ‘94 ‘96 ‘00 ‘04 ‘08 ‘12 ‘12
CF
EN VU NT Ew Ceasing habitat protection and restoration would have significantly jeopardized the
population recovery. Only 5–6 pairs left in wild in 1968 (Impey et al., 2002) and
probably not significantly above 100 birds in 1988 (C. Jones, pers. comm.) and
therefore we predicted it would have become EW before 2012. By 1988, it was held
by one zoological institution other that Durrell and so we assume it would have
persisted in captivity until 2012
CR EN NT EX Ceasing habitat protection and restoration would have significantly jeopardized the
population recovery. 8 Pairs were known to exist in 1979 (C. Jones, pers. comm.) and
probably not significantly above 100 birds in 1988 (C. Jones, pers. comm.) and
therefore we predicted it would have become EX before 2012
CR CR Site protection, conservation payments, and local policies and regulations would
not have happened probably leading to significantly increased habitat loss through
R.P. Young et al. / Biological Conservation 180 (2014) 84–96
burning and agricultural encroachment, and continuation of poaching. However,
with an AoO of approximately 300 km2 and a population size of possibly 1000–
2500 in 1988 we predicted the population would have persisted until 2012.
Probable criteria met: B1ab (iii, v)
EN CR Site protection, site management, conservation payments, compliance and
enforcement, and local policies and regulations would not have happened leading
to continuation of high deforestation rates in Menabe Antimena dry forest, the only
site at which the species exists. A PHVA model (Sommer et al., 2002) predicted
rapid population declines and extinction within 24 years if rates of deforestation
and feral dog predation continued unabated. Probable criteria met: E
VU VU Site protection, site management, conservation payments, compliance and
enforcement, and local policies and regulations would not have happened leading
to continuation of high deforestation rates in Menabe Antimena, representing
approximately 30% of species’ AoO (Woolaver et al., 2006). Species has persisted in
other areas of its range with little effective habitat conservation and no clear
evidence the species would have met any EN or CR criteria. Probable criteria met:
B1ab (ii–v)
CR CR Ceasing Durrell’s captive breeding would not have affected wild population as no
animals were released back to wild (from Durrell or other institution). Ceasing site
management and habitat restoration is likely to have led to some habitat loss. We
assume the moratorium on hunting would have remained in place. By 1988, this
species had recovered from a low of 70 individuals in 1979 to around 800 (C. Jones,
pers. comm.) and therefore we predicted its population would have persisted until
2012. Probable criteria met: B1ab (iii)
CR CR Captive breeding and release programme would not have happened and therefore
new populations in Sonai Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary and Orang National Park would
not have been established. Work to improve site management in Manas National
Park to ensure the grasslands are more suitable for pygmy hogs would not have
happened which could have led to further declines in the last remaining wild
population. Probable criteria met: C2a (ii)
EN EN Ceasing Durrell’s captive breeding programme, technical support and training of
national-level partner staff is likely to have jeopardized the first releases in Morro
do Diabo NP in 1999–2001. Financial support to main national-level partner would
not have happened, which helped fund habitat corridor restoration. However, no
clear evidence the species would have met any CR criteria without this support.
Probable criteria met: B2ab (iii)
CR EN EN Ceasing Durrell’s captive breeding programme would not have had a significant
impact on the wider ex-situ programme with the species held by many 10s of other
zoological institutions by 1988. Training of staff from national-level partners would
have ceased. However, we predicted the work of the many other national- and
international-level partners would still have led to the recovery to EN. Criteria met:
B1ab (iii)
 R.P. Young et al. / Biological Conservation 180 (2014) 84–96
Fig. 1. Locations of long-term species conservation programmes operated by Durrell and its national-level partners.
of species in the wild. The genuine status changes given by
Hoffmann et al. (2010) were updated using the latest information
in BirdLife International (2013b) to account for any further cate-
gory changes that occurred after 2010. Due to differences in the
timing of Red List assessments for these three groups, we modelled
an RLI for each taxonomic class separately with an aggregated RLI
calculated as the arithmetic mean of the three modelled RLIs. The
RLIs for each taxonomic group were interpolated linearly for years
between data points and extrapolated linearly (with a slope equal
to that between the two closest assessed points) back to 1988
(eight years before the first assessment for mammals, following
Butchart et al., 2010) and forwards to 2012 for years for which esti-
mates were not available (with a slope equal to that between the
two closest assessed points), following the method of Butchart
et al. (2010). Rather than extrapolating deterministically, this
method incorporates extrapolation uncertainty by selecting the
slope used for extrapolation from a normal distribution with a
probability equal to the slope of the closest two assessed points,
and standard deviation equal to 60% of this slope (i.e. the CV is
60%). Given that only one amphibian species was included in the
Durrell RLI, and therefore only one species contributed to the RLI
trend between 1980 and 1988 we set the starting point of the
aggregated RLI at 1988, when all the birds were first assessed.
The ‘true’ RLI likely changes from year to year, whereas assess-
ments are repeated only at multi-year intervals, meaning the pre-
cise value for any particular year is uncertain. To make this explicit,
a final RLI value was assigned to each taxonomic group for each
year from a 5 year moving window, centred on the focal year (with
the window set as 3–4 years for the first two and last two years in
89
the series). Each ‘run’ produced an RLI for the complete time period
for each taxonomic group, incorporating extrapolation and tempo-
ral uncertainty. Following Butchart et al. (2010), ten thousand such
runs were generated for each taxonomic group, and the mean was
calculated. The aggregated RLI was calculated as the arithmetic
mean of modelled RLIs for each taxa and the 2.5% estimate (lower)
and 97.5% (upper) values were used to generate the 95% confidence
interval displayed in Fig. 3.
The counterfactual RLI was calculated by predicting what Red
List category each of the 17 species would have qualified at in
2012 if all Durrell-led or -supported conservation actions had
ceased in 1988 and if threats at the time had continued unabated,
following the logic of Butchart et al. (2006a) (see below). These
2012 counterfactual categories were used to calculate a counter-
factual RLI value for 2012, and a line fitted back to the observed
RLI value in 1988. For Critically Endangered bird species, we fol-
lowed the criteria of Butchart et al. (2006a) to establish the likeli-
hood of whether a species would not have survived as extant if
conservation had been withdrawn in 1988. Butchart et al.
(2006a) drew up a list of bird species that had a minimum popula-
tion estimated to be fewer than 100 individuals in 1994 or had a
current population that was estimated to be fewer than 200 indi-
viduals and estimated, inferred or suspected to be declining at a
rate of more than 80% over 10 years or three generations (which-
ever was longer). They then determined whether each species
was likely to have gone extinct during 1994–2004 if conservation
action had ceased in 1994, using published and expert-based infor-
mation on the population size, trends, severity of threats and
intensity and effectiveness of conservation interventions. In their
90 R.P. Young et al. / Biological Conservation 180 (2014) 84–96

(a) Benefited from conservation No detected benefit from conservation there was clear evidence that the species would have deteriorated
further or still improved without this conservation.
Agriculture & aquaculture
Invasive species
Finally, for the species that were downlisted to a lower category
Logging & wood harvesting of extinction risk during 1988–2012, we calculated the mean
Climate change & severe weather number of years between the start of the intervention and the date
Hunting the species first qualified for downlisting (according to the data
Urban development presented in Hoffmann et al., 2010). For all species, Durrell either
Fire instigated the conservation programmes or was involved from
Pollution
the time when significant conservation interventions were initi-
Water management
ated. To account for species that may have recovered sufficiently
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
to merit downlisting to a lower Red List category between the start
Number of species
of the intervention and 1988 (the year Red List categories were first
assigned) we examined the population histories of each downlist-
(b) Benefited from conservation No detected benefit from conservation
ed species prior to 1988. All qualified as Critically Endangered in
Species management 1988 except the Rodrigues fody which qualified as Endangered
Land protection (see Table 1). At the start of the intervention for this species in
Invasive species control 1982, its population was likely over 100 individuals and not declin-
Land management ing and therefore probably would have still qualified as Endan-
Habitat restoration gered (under criterion D) at that date.
External capacity building
Education & awareness 2.3. Threats and conservation actions
Livelihood & other incentives
For each species in the RLI, we coded the threats operating dur-
Law & policy
ing the intervention period and the conservation actions imple-
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
mented (see Table A1). We used data available for birds (at
Number of species
www.birdlife.org/datazone/species) on the impact of threats,
Fig. 2. Number of species (a) impacted by different threat types and (b) receiving based on their timing, scope and severity, to exclude any of low
different actions that ‘benefited from conservation’ (i.e. they qualified for down- or negligible impact. For mammals and amphibians, there is no
listing on the IUCN Red List since 1988 owing to conservation action according to data source on the impact scores for current or historical threats
Hoffmann et al. (2010) or they were predicted to have avoided a status deterio- and therefore we made judgements based on the BirdLife Interna-
ration due to conservation; dark grey bars), compared with species that showed ‘no
detected benefit from conservation’ (no change in Red List category compared with
tional threat scoring system on their likely impact so as to only
the counterfactual or qualified for uplisting to a higher category of extinction risk consider threats of a medium or high impact. We coded the threats
since 1988; light grey bars). following the ‘1st Level of Classification’ of the IUCN-CMP Unified
Classification of Direct Threats Version 3.1 (2011; Salafsky et al.
(2008)). Given the very broad definition of the Biological Resource
Use and Natural System Modification categories and their preva-
lence among the species considered, for these threat types we used
the 2nd Level of Classification sub-categories.
We coded the conservation actions following the ‘1st Level of
Classification’ from the IUCN – CMP Unified Classification of
Conservation Actions Needed Version 2.0 (Salafsky et al. (2008).
Given the very broad definition of the Land/Water Management
category, and its importance in Durrell’s conservation pro-
grammes, for this conservation action we used the 2nd Level of
Classification sub-categories, which importantly allowed us to dis-
tinguish between 2.1. Site/Area Management (hereafter referred to
as Land Management); 2.2. Invasive/Problematic Species Control
(hereafter referred to as Invasive Species Control; and 2.3. Habitat
and Natural Process Restoration (hereafter referred to as Habitat
Restoration).
For each different threat or action type, we then calculated the
number of species that were downlisted on the Red List or avoided
Fig. 3. Trends in the Red List Index of Species Survival for Durrell’s target species
(solid black line with 95% confidence interval) and for the counterfactual scenario uplisting compared with the counterfactual (hereafter referred to
(dashed black line). as species that ‘benefitted from conservation’), and the number
that remained unchanged compared with the counterfactual or
were uplisted on the Red List (hereafter referred to as species that
analysis Butchart et al. (2006a), predicted that the pink pigeon N. experienced ‘no detected benefit from conservation’, recognizing
mayeri and Echo parakeet P. eques would have been likely to have that some or many probably did benefit, but to a degree that did
gone extinct during 1994–2004 in the absence of conservation, and not affect their Red List categorization) (Fig. 2a and b). To investi-
that the Mauritius kestrel F. punctatus, Rodrigues warbler A. roder- gate ability to mitigate different threats and the potential effective-
icanus and Rodrigues fody F. flavicans would have gone extinct ness of conservation actions we used a Fisher’s Exact Test (Fisher,
prior to 1994. 1922) on a series of 2  2 contingency tables to test for an unequal
To determine the counterfactual 2012 Red List categories for all distribution of species between the benefit and the no benefit cat-
other species in the Durrell RLI, we assumed that the earliest Red egories in the presence versus absence of each of the threats and
List category would have remained unchanged if the conservation conservation actions. All statistical analyses were conducted in R
activities led or supported by Durrell had ceased in 1988, unless 2.11.1 (R Development Core Team, 2008).
 R.P. Young et al. / Biological Conservation 180 (2014) 84–96
3. Results
3.1. Red List Index
Across the 17 species included in the Durrell RLI, 12 ‘genuine
category changes’ relating to nine species occurred between 1988
and 2012 (Table 1, some species moved categories in more than
one time period between assessments), 11 of which were improve-
ments (downlisting to lower Red List categories) in eight species
and all were the result of conservation actions (Hoffmann et al.,
2010). For example, the Mallorcan midwife toad A. muletensis
was downlisted from Critically Endangered to Vulnerable under
criterion D2 between 1996 and 2004 as a result of captive breeding
and reintroduction combined with invasive species control. This
led to the re-establishment of populations and the recovery of
established populations (Table 1). The twelfth status change was
the deterioration in the status of the Meller’s duck A. melleri during
1988–1994, driven mainly by the conversion of wetlands to rice
production and hunting which is estimated to have caused the
population size to fall below 2500 mature individuals, qualifying
the species for uplisting from Vulnerable to Endangered under cri-
terion Red List criterion C2aii by 1994. Overall, the category
changes equate to a net mean rate of 0.44 species per year moving
one Red List category away from extinction. These status improve-
ments drove a positive trend in the Durrell RLI (Fig. 3) which
increased from a mean index value of 0.31 (95% CI: 0.29–0.32) in
1988 to 0.52 (95% CI: 0.51–0.52) in 2012, an increase of 67.1%
(2.7% per year).
Of the eight species that were downlisted to lower categories of
extinction risk between 1988 and 2012, the mean number of years
between the start of the conservation intervention and the year of
the first downlisting was 16.3 years (±1.2 SE; range: 11–25 years;
n = 8).
Table 1 gives the predicted Red List categories for all 17 species
in 2012 under the counterfactual scenario of Durrell-led or
supported conservation actions ceasing in 1988, along with infor-
mation on the duration of the intervention, main threats and
actions implemented. We predicted that Red List categories for
10 species would have remained unchanged from their original
category, whereas six species would have deteriorated and one
would still have improved. Five Mauritian birds were predicted
to have moved from Critically Endangered to Extinct (or Extinct
in the Wild) and the Malagasy giant jumping rat would have been
uplisted from Endangered to Critically Endangered. A population
viability model produced prior to the conservation intervention
was implemented predicted severe and rapid population declines
sufficient to have likely met Criterion E of the CR category, assum-
ing rates of deforestation and feral dog predation had continued
unabated (see Table 1). We predicted the golden lion tamarin how-
ever would have still have improved in status, from Critically
Endangered to Endangered, due to the number of international
and national-level organizations involved in this recovery pro-
gramme and the relatively small role played by Durrell.
The counterfactual RLI declined by 23.4% during 1988–2012
(0.9% per year) to a value of 0.24 in 2012. Overall, this represents
a mean rate of 0.18 species per year moving one Red List category
towards extinction. The absolute difference in 2012 between index
values in the Durrell and counterfactual RLIs is therefore 0.29,
which can be attributed to the conservation efforts of Durrell and
its national-level partners.
3.2. Threats and conservation actions
The principal threats to the 17 species in terms of proportion of
species affected were agriculture and aquaculture (16 species),
91
logging and wood-harvesting (13), and invasive alien species (11)
(Fig. 2a). Invasive species was the only threat that showed a differ-
ence between the ratio of numbers of species that benefited versus
did not experience a detectable benefit from conservation when
the threat was present versus when it was absent (Fishers Exact
Test, odds ratio = 11.1, P = 0.049). Of 11 species impacted by
invasive species, eight experienced a benefit from conservation
compared to three for which we did not detect any benefit.
Species management (15 species), land protection (13) and land
management (13) were the top three most commonly imple-
mented actions (Fig. 2b). Invasive alien control was the only con-
servation action for which there was a difference in the ratio of
species that benefited and did not benefit from conservation (Fish-
ers Exact Test, odds ratio = 18.8, P = 0.015). Of eight species for
which invasive alien control was implemented as a conservation
action, seven species benefitted whereas only one species did not
experience a detected benefit. This compared with a corresponding
ratio of two and seven species when invasive species control was
not implemented.
4. Discussion
In this study, we tested for the first time the practicality of the
RLI for evaluating institutional-level conservation impacts. By con-
trasting an observed RLI with a counterfactual scenario we show it
is possible to measure trends in the impact of an organization’s
conservation efforts on the relative survival probability of a mod-
estly sized set of bird, mammal and amphibian species. We also
show that the length of time required for a detectable recovery
in this group of globally threatened vertebrate species, as mea-
sured by an improvement in Red List category, is on average just
over 16 years.
The main driver of the positive trend observed in the Durrell RLI
is the successful efforts in Mauritius since the late 1970s to con-
serve highly threatened birds. The downlisting of six of these bird
species (Mauritius kestrel, echo parakeet, pink pigeon, Mauritius
fody, Rodrigues fody and Rodrigues warbler) represents a globally
significant species conservation success story. It has been brought
about through intensive hands-on management of wild popula-
tions including captive breeding and release, clutch and brood
manipulations, nest site enhancement and the provisioning of nest
boxes, supplemental feeding, translocations as well as controlling
invasive predators and restoring forest habitats through weeding
and planting. The other downlistings resulting from genuine
improvements in status related to golden lion tamarin L. rosalia
(which was downlisted from Critically Endangered to Endangered
in 2004 following a long-term programme of captive breeding,
reintroduction, site management and habitat restoration) and Mal-
lorcan midwife toad (which was downlisted from Critically Endan-
gered to Vulnerable in 2004 after a long-term captive breeding and
reintroduction programme).
The 17 species included in this study faced nine main threats
with nine different main conservation actions implemented in
response. Most notable was the difference in the ratio of the
numbers of species benefitting versus not experiencing a
detected benefit from conservation when invasive species control
was and was not implemented. This result suggests that in the
geographic regions and conservation contexts involved in this
study, invasive species was the most tractable threat in terms
of enabling species recovery. This is unsurprising as of seven spe-
cies benefitting from conservation, six were Mauritian birds,
where invasive species was often the primary threat through pre-
dation of eggs, nestlings or adults, and where invasive species
management has been successfully implemented and sustained
since 1985 (Jones and Hartley, 1995). This finding is in line with
92 R.P. Young et al. / Biological Conservation 180 (2014) 84–96
the well-documented impacts of invasive mammalian species in
particular on oceanic island faunas (see Courchamp et al., 2003;
Simberloff et al., 2013 for reviews). These analyses, however,
are based on very small sample sizes and did not attempt to
quantify the magnitude of the impact of the different threats
types which is necessary to understand better the ability to mit-
igate different threats and the relative effectiveness of different
conservation actions.
In order to evaluate fully the impacts of a conservation pro-
gramme it is necessary to ask what would have happened if there
had been no intervention, a process of making inferences about an
unobserved counterfactual event that is rarely applied in conserva-
tion programme evaluation (Ferraro and Pattanayak, 2006). In the
current study, we predicted what would have happened to the tar-
get species by 2012 if conservation had been withdrawn in 1988
(the start date of the RLI). We considered an alternative approach
to evaluating the impact of conservation actions on the target spe-
cies by contrasting them with a set of comparator species, matched
for a range of biological traits but subject to no or much reduced
conservation effort. However, the types of species targeted by Dur-
rell essentially represent unique treatment units without obvious
comparators, a common barrier to such quasi-experimental
designs (Ferraro, 2009). Many of the target species in this study
are from restricted island faunas with very few or no biologically
similar species with comparable population histories but contrast-
ing conservation efforts.
Predicting counterfactual Red List categories for the Mauritian
birds was relatively straightforward, as the population histories,
threats and conservation actions are well known, and several had
been documented by a previous study examining the number of
extinctions prevented by conservation interventions (Butchart
et al., 2006a). In the 1980s, five of the Mauritian bird species were
at extremely low population sizes (<100 individuals), with a strong
likelihood of high-impact threats returning should conservation
actions be withdrawn, and therefore a high likelihood that they
would have gone extinct (Butchart et al., 2006a). Assessing
‘avoided category changes’ requires detailed information on popu-
lation sizes and trends, and threats and effectiveness of conserva-
tion actions, which are often not available for taxa other than
birds. For this reason, predicting counterfactual 2012 categories
for amphibian and mammal species in the current study was not
as straightforward. For the Malagasy giant jumping rat, the avail-
ability of a population viability model (Sommer et al., 2002) pro-
duced prior to a major forest conservation intervention enabled
us to judge that conservation had led to an ‘avoided uplisting’ of
this species. A set of standard criteria and levels of evidence for
estimating counterfactual RLIs for a range of taxa would be needed
to ensure consistency in impact measurement performed by differ-
ent institutions and across different conservation programme
structures.
Determining the counterfactual modern-day Red List categories
for the target species was also challenging given all of the pro-
grammes are implemented as part of partnerships of national
and international conservation organizations. As part of its opera-
tional strategy, Durrell works in close long-term partnerships with
national-level organizations (or national-level programmes of
international outfits) to deliver and build capacity for conservation
actions. These partnerships are so intertwined that for the majority
of species in this study we found it impossible to sensibly disaggre-
gate the relative contributions of the institutions involved. We also
did not consider the impact of any other agencies external to these
partnerships that may have implemented actions benefitting the
target species, mainly because these were extremely difficult to
quantify and rare in occurrence. The conservation impacts reported
here therefore are acknowledged as shared between Durrell and its
national-level partners.
As it may require a substantial increase in population or geo-
graphic range size, or a major reduction in the rate of decline, for
a globally threatened species to move into a lower Red List cate-
gory of extinction risk, the RLI is best suited to tracking changes
in the status of species over at least moderate time periods (4–
5 years or more). While deteriorations in status, and hence
uplistings on the Red List can happen very rapidly (e.g. Indian
white-backed Gyps bengalensis and long-billed Gyps indicus vul-
tures, Prakash et al., 2003; spoon-billed sandpiper Eurynorhynchus
pygmeus, Zockler et al., 2010; and saiga antelope, Milner-Gulland
et al., 2001), for the eight study species that improved in status it
took on average 16.3 years from the start of the intervention to
the year of the first downlisting, with a range of 11–25 years.
The 16 year period reflects the time needed for actions to be
implemented sufficiently to mitigate threats allowing population
recovery of a magnitude to merit downlisting. It also reflects the
periodicity of the assessment schedule, which at its most fre-
quent takes place every 4 years (for birds). There is a clear mis-
match between the average time to first downlisting shown
here and the typical conservation funding time-frames of
2–4 years. For the many globally threatened species with longer
generation lengths than species in this study Pacifici et al.
(2013) and therefore often longer population recovery times,
the time from initiation of conservation interventions to first
downlisting is likely to be significantly longer than the 16 years
reported here. This also emphasizes the challenge of meeting
the CBD Aichi Target 12, under which the world’s governments
have committed to improving the status of known threatened
species by 2020 (CBD, 2010a).
5. Conclusion
As an indicator of institutional impact, the RLI is most practical
for organizations with a relatively small set of target species that
have restricted distributions (and therefore for which the institu-
tion’s interventions can impact a large proportion of the population
of each species). For example, during 2008–2012, the BirdLife
International Partnership undertook conservation action for 537
threatened bird species in over 140 countries worldwide
(BirdLife International, 2013c). Determining the counterfactual sta-
tus in the absence of conservation for each of these species would
be a significant challenge, as would ascribing the impact of actions
by BirdLife Partners or Species Guardians for species that span
multiple countries (which is the case for 37% of threatened bird
species: BirdLife International, 2013b) and which may receive con-
servation actions implemented by multiple organizations and
agencies.
Using the RLI to track the impact of an institution has a further
limitation. It relies on target species being periodically assessed for
the IUCN Red List which in turn relies on the activities of IUCN Spe-
cies Survival Commission Specialist Groups, IUCN Red List Partners
and Red List Authorities, which often operate voluntarily. The
number of species assessments in the Red List now exceeds over
70,000 species (IUCN, 2013a) but RLIs are only currently available
for birds, mammals, amphibians and corals. Substantially greater
funding and more efficient processes are required to scale up the
taxonomic coverage and frequency of reassessments (Stuart
et al., 2010; Rondinini et al., 2013).
The action-focused RLI indicator is well-suited for raising
awareness for public and policy makers, auditing management
actions and informing policy decisions (Jones et al., 2013). Like
macroeconomic indicators, such as the FTSE 100 or Dow Jones
Index, it is intuitively understandable to non-technical audiences
despite its underlying technical complexity (Jones et al., 2013).
Therefore, the RLI is a useful tool in demonstrating and
 R.P. Young et al. / Biological Conservation 180 (2014) 84–96
communicating medium to long-term conservation impacts of
institutions and programmes to a range of non-technical but influ-
ential audiences such as trustees, supporters and donors. To con-
clude, by contrasting an observed with a counterfactual RLI this
study provides scarce but vital quantitative evidence that, given
time, intensive and sustained conservation efforts can significantly
improve the status of threatened species. With widespread uncer-
tainty about the effectiveness of conservation investments (Ferraro
and Pattanayak, 2006), and the need to show progress towards CBD
Aichi Target 12 at global, national and sub-national levels, this
study suggests the RLI can make an important contribution to eval-
uating the performance of species-focused conservation institu-
tions and programmes.
Table A1
Historical and current threats, and conservation actions for species targeted by Durrell. For species that qualified for a genuine Red List category change since 1988 (both down
and uplisting) or have avoided being downlisted, the main threats driving the change or mitigated by the conservation action are highlighted in bold.
Species Threats to species
Mallorcan midwife toad Alytes muletensis Housing and urban areas
Commercial and industrial areas
Dams and water management/use
Invasive species
Droughts
Mauritius fody Foudia rubra Annual and perennial non-timber
crops
Invasive species
Logging and wood harvesting
Mauritius kestrel Falco punctatus Annual and perennial non-timber
crops
Logging and wood harvesting
Invasive speciose
Agricultural and forestry effluents
Echo parakeet Psittacula eques Wood and pulp plantations
Logging and wood harvesting
Invasive species
Problematic native species
Madagascar teal Anas bernieri Annual and perennial non-timber
crops
Marine and freshwater aquaculture
Hunting and trapping terrestrial
animals
Logging and wood harvesting
Meller’s duck Anas melleri Annual and perennial non-timber
crops
Hunting and trapping terrestrial
animals
Logging and wood harvesting
Invasive species
Agricultural and forestry effluents
Olive white eye Zosterops chloronothos Annual and perennial non-timber
crops
Logging and wood harvesting
Invasive species
Pink pigeon Nesoenas mayeri Annual and perennial non-timber
93
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the many people whom have
contributed to the IUCN Red List assessments upon which these
analyses are based. We are also grateful to Nik Cole, Glyn Young,
Lance Woolaver, Herizo Andrianandrasana, Matthew Morton and
Dominic Wormell for their useful information and insights in the
design and drafting of the manuscript. The research was funded
by the institutions to which the authors are affiliated.
Appendix A
Supplementary Table A1.
Species and site-based conservation actions implemented by Durrell and/or
national-level partners
Invasive species control
Species reintroduction/translocation
Captive breeding
Training
Site/area protection
Invasive species control
Habitat and natural process restoration
Species recovery
Species re-introduction/translocation
Captive breeding
Site/area protection
Invasive species control
Species recovery
Species reintroduction/translocation
Captive breeding
Training
Institutional and civil society development
Conservation finance
Site/area protection
Invasive species control
Habitat and natural process restoration
Nest protection
Species reintroduction/translocation
Captive breeding
Training
Institutional and civil society development
Conservation finance
Site/area protection
Captive breeding
Training
Site/area protection
Captive breeding
Training
Site/area protection
Invasive species control
Habitat and natural process restoration
Species recovery
Captive breeding
Site/area protection
(continued on next page)
94
Table A1 (continued)
Species
Rodrigues fody Foudia flavicans
Rodrigues warbler Acrocephalus
rodericanus
Alaotran gentle lemur Hapalemur
alaotrensis
Malagasy giant jumping rat Hypogeomys
antimena
Narrow-striped mongoose Mungotictis
decemlineata
Rodrigues fruitbat Pteropus rodricensis
Pygmy hog Porcula salvania
R.P. Young et al. / Biological Conservation 180 (2014) 84–96
Threats to species
crops
Logging and wood harvesting
Invasive species
Storms and flooding
Annual and perennial non-timber
crops
Livestock farming and ranching
Invasive species
Storms and flooding
Annual and perennial non-timber
crops
Invasive species
Annual and perennial non-timber
crops
Livestock farming and ranching
Hunting and trapping terrestrial
animals
Fire and fire suppression
Annual and perennial non-timber
crops
Livestock farming and ranching
Hunting and trapping terrestrial
animals
Logging and wood harvesting
Invasive species
Annual and perennial non-timber
crops
Livestock farming and ranching
Logging and wood harvesting
Annual and perennial non-timber
crops
Hunting and trapping terrestrial
animals
Logging and wood harvesting
Problematic native species
Storms and flooding
Annual and perennial non-timber
crops
Wood and pulp plantations
Livestock farming and ranching
Hunting and trapping terrestrial
animals
Logging and wood harvesting
Fire and fire suppression
Species and site-based conservation actions implemented by Durrell and/or
national-level partners
Invasive species control
Habitat and natural process restoration
Species recovery
Species reintroduction/translocation
Captive breeding
Training
Institutional and civil society development
Conservation finance
Site/area protection
Site/area management
Invasive species control
Habitat and natural process restoration
Captive breeding
Site/area protection
Site/area management
Invasive species control
Habitat and natural process restoration
Site/area protection
Site/area management
Species management
Captive breeding
Awareness and communications
Legislation
Policies and regulations
Compliance and enforcement
Linked enterprises and livelihood alternatives
Conservation payments
Institutional and civil society development
Site/area protection
Site/area management
Captive breeding
Awareness and communications
Training
Legislation
Policies and regulations
Compliance and enforcement
Livelihood, economic and other incentives
Conservation payments
Institutional and civil society development
Site/area protection
Site/area management
Legislation
Policies and regulations
Compliance and enforcement
Livelihood, economic and other incentives
Conservation payments
Institutional and civil society development
Habitat and natural process restoration
Captive breeding
Legislation
Training
Institutional and civil society development
Conservation finance
Site/area management
Habitat and natural process restoration
Species management
Species re-introduction/translocation
Captive breeding
Training
Awareness and communications
Linked enterprises and livelihood alternatives
Institutional and civil society development
 R.P. Young et al. / Biological Conservation 180 (2014) 84–96
Black lion tamarin Leontopithecus Annual and perennial non-timber
chrysopygus crops
Wood and pulp plantations
Livestock farming and ranching
Logging and wood harvesting
Golden lion tamarin Leontopithecus rosalia Housing and urban areas
Annual and perennial non-timber
crops
Livestock farming and ranching
Hunting and trapping terrestrial
animals
Logging and wood harvesting
Fire and fire suppression
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