Updating the Red List: A national necessity for a rapidly changing Bangladesh

Bangladesh was once a country rich in wildlife. 

However, due to the unsustainable use and mismanagement of our fauna in general — and wildlife in particular — we have reached a critical threshold from which it will be difficult to return to pre-1960s levels unless the government adopts drastic measures to safeguard biodiversity.

One of the internationally recognised tools for measuring the health of a country's fauna and flora is the Red Listing process introduced by the Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). 

Established in 1948, the IUCN began its formal Red List of Threatened Species in 1964.

Why the Red List was created

The initiative to establish the Red List process emerged from a growing realisation that species across the world were disappearing at an alarming rate. Without a systematic method to record, assess and communicate extinction risk within a credible framework, biodiversity protection efforts would remain fragmented and ineffective.

There was an urgent need for a scientifically grounded system capable of evaluating species' conservation status using consistent criteria across regions and taxonomic groups. This need became more pressing as habitat destruction, overexploitation, pollution and erratic climate patterns accelerated species decline. Decision-makers required reliable evidence to prioritise conservation actions and allocate limited resources efficiently.

As a result, the Red List process was initiated to serve as an authoritative global inventory of species' conservation status.

Conservationists, scientists and policymakers recognised that without a unified system for assessing extinction risk, efforts to prioritise species conservation would remain inconsistent and unclear. To address this, the IUCN Red List established nine categories to classify species according to their risk of extinction (IUCN 2012, Version 3.1).

These categories include: Extinct (EX) – no living individuals remain anywhere in the world; Extinct in the Wild (EW) – survives only in captivity or cultivation; Critically Endangered (CR) – faces an extremely high risk of extinction in the immediate future; Endangered (EN); Vulnerable (VU); Near Threatened (NT); Least Concern (LC); Data Deficient (DD) – insufficient information to assess risk; Not Evaluated (NE) – not yet assessed.

The Red List plays a crucial role in alerting governments, conservation organisations, researchers and the public to extinction risks. It uses standardised scientific criteria to ensure assessments are objective, comparable and evidence-based.

Beyond classification, the Red List provides detailed information on population size and trends, geographic distribution, habitat requirements and threats. This information is essential for planning and implementing effective in situ conservation strategies — that is, conservation within natural habitats. 

It also informs environmental impact assessments, protected area planning and biodiversity policy formulation. Thus, the Red List is not merely a record of species' status but a practical tool guiding conservation management worldwide.

Bangladesh and the Red Listing process

Bangladesh joined global wildlife conservation efforts in 1972 by becoming a state member of the IUCN. As one of only around 90 state members, the country undertook an obligation to follow IUCN-prescribed Red Listing standards.

In 2000, the IUCN Country Office in Bangladesh prepared its first partial national Red List of fauna. However, it relied on locally adapted criteria rather than fully applying official IUCN standards. Despite these limitations, the effort marked an important first step.

Fifteen years later, in 2015, with support from the government of Bangladesh and the World Bank, IUCN Bangladesh completed a second national Red List assessment. This comprehensive initiative covered 1,619 species across five vertebrate and two invertebrate groups. I was involved in this process as the technical head.

For the first time, the Bangladesh Forest Department also assessed 1,000 species of vascular plants, addressing another aspect of the country's international conservation commitments.

Encouragingly, the Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD), under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and IUCN Bangladesh have recently entered into a formal agreement to update the Faunal Red List. This initiative will revise the 2015 assessments and evaluate at least 600 additional species that were previously unassessed.

This marks a renewed and more rigorous national effort to strengthen biodiversity assessment and conservation planning.

Why updating the Red List is essential

Bangladesh urgently needs an updated national Red List because biodiversity patterns, threat dynamics and scientific knowledge have changed rapidly in recent years. An outdated Red List no longer reflects ecological reality and weakens conservation action.

Key reasons include:

Rapid habitat loss and land-use change

Deforestation, wetland drainage, river modification, coastal development and urban expansion have drastically altered forests, haors, mangroves, grasslands and islands. Species once considered secure may now be declining or locally extinct.

Accelerating climate change impacts

Sea-level rise, salinity intrusion, cyclones, floods, droughts and temperature shifts are already reshaping species distributions — pressures insufficiently captured in earlier assessments.

Availability of new scientific data

Recent years have produced new country records, rediscoveries, improved population estimates and better ecological understanding. Without updating the Red List, this knowledge remains underutilised in national planning.

Better prioritisation of conservation resources

Red Lists guide protected area designation, recovery programmes, funding allocation and law enforcement. An outdated list risks misdirecting scarce resources.

Legal and policy relevance

National Red Lists inform wildlife law enforcement, environmental impact assessments and sectoral policies. Their scientific credibility depends on up-to-date assessments.

International obligations

As a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), CITES, the Ramsar Convention and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Bangladesh must demonstrate credible and current biodiversity reporting aligned with global standards.

Inclusion of neglected taxa

Earlier assessments focused largely on large mammals and birds, leaving amphibians, freshwater fishes, invertebrates and marine and island species comparatively underassessed despite their high vulnerability.

Preventing silent extinctions

Many species decline unnoticed. Regular reassessment functions as a preventive tool, enabling timely intervention before losses become irreversible.

Addressing data deficiency in the ongoing faunal red listing

A major challenge in the current update is reassessing species previously categorised as Data Deficient (DD).

In the 2015 assessment, 278 of the 1,619 evaluated species (approximately 17%) were classified as DD due to insufficient published information, even after incorporating expert opinion and personal communications. 

These included: 79 crustaceans, 55 birds, 40 fishes, 39 mammals, 32 butterflies, 27 reptiles, and six amphibians.

This highlights significant knowledge gaps across multiple taxonomic groups.

Two mammalian examples illustrate this issue.

The Himalayan mole (Euroscaptor micrura) is a small, secretive nocturnal mammal first sighted and photographed in Bangladesh by Tania Khan in Lawachhara forest. She later shared the photograph with me, and it was used in the 2015 Red List. A few years after her sighting, another mole was captured in the Srimangal area in 2017, confirming its presence.

Based on this limited but concrete evidence, I advised that the species be evaluated. The current Red List revision should organise dedicated field surveys to determine its present status.

Our largest living animal in Bangladesh is Bryde's whale (Balaenoptera edeni), a marine mammal inhabiting the Swatch of No Ground in the Bay of Bengal. Researchers from Bangladesh and abroad have conducted commendable studies on this whale and associated dolphin species. Significant research has been undertaken by the Bangladesh chapter of the Wildlife Conservation Society and others.

Given the availability of substantial new information, there is an urgent need to update the status of this previously Data Deficient species.

Over the past fifteen years, considerable research conducted both domestically and internationally has generated new data on many previously understudied taxa. This expanding body of knowledge presents a timely opportunity to re-evaluate both Data Deficient (DD) and Not Evaluated (NE) species, thereby enhancing the scientific robustness and completeness of Bangladesh's current faunal Red Listing process.

Updating Bangladesh's Red List is essential to reflect present ecological realities, strengthen laws and policies, guide effective conservation investment, fulfil international commitments and prevent unnoticed biodiversity loss.

A Red List is not a static document — it is a living scientific instrument.

For a rapidly changing country like Bangladesh, regular updates are not optional; they are a national necessity.

Bagh, or the Bengal tiger, remains another Critically Endangered species in Bangladesh.

Reza Khan is a wildlife, zoo and safari park management and conservation specialists

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.