The week of October 13-18, 2017, the ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes facilitated IUCN Red List of Threatened Species training certification for 10 people from across the United States as part of its commitment to our advancing knowledge partnership.

The Red List is the world’s standard for quantifying species extinction risk and is used around the world to inform policy, planning and conservation action. Beth Polidoro, the center’s Deputy Director, has been spearheading the university’s partnership with IUCN Red List.

The center is in the process of becoming an official IUCN Red List training center for North and South America. To kick off this initiative, Caroline Pollock, a Senior Programme Officer from the IUCN Red List Unit in Cambridge, United Kingdom, visited ASU to oversee the two critical training workshops.

In addition, two of the participants, including Kyle Strongin, an ASU PhD student with years of Red Listing experience, led a three-day Red List Assessor workshop for more than 30 participants from across the globe to learn how to conduct species assessments for the IUCN Red List.

Participants who attended the Assessor Workshop will go on to assess thousands of species for the Red List from a wide variety of taxonomic groups including freshwater fishes, Lagomorphs, Patagonian Sea marine fishes, Sonoran Desert plants and more.