UN uses IUCN Red List to measure success of Millennium
Development Goals 25 September 2008 | International news release
For the first time, the United Nations Millennium Development
Goals is monitoring the world’s plants and animals using the
IUCN Red List Index. Until now, the seventh Millennium
Development Goal, to ensure environmental sustainability, has
not included any mention of biodiversity or the need to save
species as a critical contribution to human development. But
with the launch of the latest Annual Report on progress towards
the Millennium Development Goals, in advance of the High-level
Event on the Millennium Development Goals at UN Headquarters in
New York on 25 September, 2008, the goal now includes the aim to
“significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010” as
one of its targets. Progress will be monitored by measuring the
proportion of species threatened with extinction – calculated by
the IUCN Red List Index. “This new target puts the importance of
species at the top of the wo