When it comes to the conservation and protection of endangered animal species, it is unpleasant to draw hierarchies, claiming that some groups deserve more attention than others. Yet in some cases it is inevitable: if one species is about to become extinct within fifty years, and another within ten, it is obvious that the second becomes more “urgent”.
At the moment, according to assessments made by the IUCN and its Red List, the group of vertebrates most at risk, and therefore an absolute priority in terms of conservation, are amphibians. A new study published in PLOS Biologyhowever, proposes an alternative vision: according to the index developed by the ecologist Gabriel Henrique de Oliveira Caetano, the real priority of the immediate future are reptiles.
Protect everyone. It should be obvious but it is worth reiterating once again: all animal and plant species deserve to be protected and conserved, especially in an era like ours during which climate change, habitat destruction, overexploitation of ecosystems and human activities are leading to the decline (and even extinction) of a frightening percentage of living species, and at rates not seen since the disappearance of the dinosaurs.
Studying extinctions. That said, as mentioned before, there are priorities. According to de Oliveira Caetano, however, these priorities are established with criteria to be reviewed: most models that calculate the risk of extinction of a species are based on population decline until that momentwhile according to the ecologist, projections on how current threats will change in the future must also be included in the models. It is from this theoretical basis that the Proactive Conservation Index (PCI) was born, which takes into account, when assessing the risk of extinction of a species, the threats it faces today but also those it will face in the future.
Reptiles first and foremost? The index has so far been applied to 33,560 species: all of them are terrestrial vertebrates. The results were then compared with the IUCN Red List ratings: they aren’t too far off, but there are some key differences. The biggest concerns the most threatened group: according to the IUCN at the moment they are amphibians, while according to the PCI reptiles have an even greater priority. This means that, according to this new index, the risks for reptiles in the future will increase even more than those for amphibians: the idea behind the PCI is “prevention is better than cure“.
Not classified. Another interesting result of the comparison concerns the species that the Red List has not yet classified: they all have a very high PCI score, which therefore means that they are very at risk, despite the fact that they have not yet been officially declared as such by the most important international body dealing with conservation. In short: according to Gabriel Henrique de Oliveira Caetano we need to review our priorities a bit, reminding ourselves that a situation that is serious today can always get worse in the future.
