The IUCN Species Programme working with the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) has for more than four decades been assessing the conservation status of species, subspecies, varieties, and even selected subpopulations on a global scale in order to highlight taxa threatened with extinction, and therefore promote their conservation. Although today we are operating in a very different political, economic, social and ecological world from that when the first IUCN Red Data Book was produced, the IUCN Species Programme, working with the Species Survival Commission and many partners, remains firmly committed to providing the world with the most objective, scientifically-based information on the current status of globally threatened biodiversity. The plants and animals assessed for the IUCN Red List are the bearers of genetic diversity and the building blocks of ecosystems, and information on their conservation status and distribution provides the foundation for making informed decisions about conserving biodiversity from local to global levels.
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ provides taxonomic, conservation status and distribution information on plants and animals that have been globally evaluated using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria. This system is designed to determine the relative risk of extinction, and the main purpose of the IUCN Red List is to catalogue and highlight those plants and animals that are facing a higher risk of global extinction (i.e. those listed as Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable).