Species Survival Commission E-Bulletin - February 2002

This bulletin, as a supplement to Species, SSC's published newsletter, is to keep staff, members, and the wider IUCN network up-to-date with news and announcements from the Commission.

Previous issues:

In this issue:

New SSC Specialist Group Chairs
Chicago Zoological Society grants for Specialist Groups
Landmark BGCI grant boosts global plant conservation
Launch of the Dugong Action Plan
IUCN/SSC helps develop Global Plant Conservation Strategy targets
New Global Mammal Partnership
African Elephant Specialist Group meeting
Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force Seed Grants
Sharpened objective for SSC Sustainable Use Specialist Group
New veterinary publications
Meeting announcement

NEW SSC SPECIALIST GROUP CHAIRS
SSC welcomes several new Specialist Group Chairs. Professor Charlotte Rajeriarison, based at Antananarivo University, Madagascar, takes over the Madagascar Plant Specialist Group. Hernán Torres of Chile takes on the South American Camelid Specialist Group, and Dr Huw Griffiths from the UK is new Chair of the Mustelid, Viverrid and Procyonid Specialist Group.

CHICAGO ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY GRANTS FOR SSC SPECIALIST GROUPS
As many SSC members will know, the Chicago Zoological Society makes annual grants to SSC Specialist Groups from its Chicago Board of Trade Endangered Species Fund for small projects identified in Action Plans or other group priority setting exercises. There are two grant cycles this year, the first with awards in May and the second with awards in October. Proposals for the first round are due by E-mail by 22 March, 2002 and should be for work to be conducted in 2002. The Fund will support small projects, usually up to $5,000 and will consider proposals on a specific threatened (or nearly threatened) species, or a specific habitat that is of high value or also threatened. Priority will be given to projects that are clearly of critical need for the species or habitat, that are likely to provide immediate results. Education /communications projects are welcome. Strict biological research projects are not a priority unless there can be a direct application of the results. Projects that have been identified in published or pending Action Plans take priority. The Specialist Group Chair (or other officer of the group) must endorse any proposal submitted on a Group's behalf. Proposals and requests for more detailed guidelines should be submitted by e-mail to: Tim Sullivan at: tisulliv@brookfieldzoo.org

LANDMARK BGCI GRANT BOOSTS GLOBAL PLANT CONSERVATION
SSC congratulates Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) on the news that the charity will receive US$11.6 million from the HSBC (banking and financial organisation) Investing in Nature eco-partnership. Over the next five years, the partnership will create a living gene bank in botanic gardens worldwide and work on a programme to revitalise conservation in 16 botanic gardens in Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, and the Middle East, to enable them to play their full role in the conservation and management of their national plant resources. It will also fund education programmes in Canada, China, Japan, the UK and the US. Formerly the Botanic Gardens Conservation Secretariat of IUCN, BGCI became independent in 1987. It is headed by Dr Peter Wyse Jackson who serves on the IUCN/SSC Plant Conservation Committee. There are close working links between BGCI and SSC. See: www.bgci.org.uk for more detail.

LAUNCH OF THE DUGONG ACTION PLAN
IUCN's Director General, Achim Steiner, and Dr. Klaus Töpfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) launched a joint publication, Dugong: Status Report and Action Plans for Countries and Territories, during the seventh special session of UNEP's Governing Council in Columbia earlier this month. The report, compiled by Helene Marsh, a member of the IUCN/SSC Sirenia Specialist Group, has been several years in development and is the first ever global study of the enigmatic "sea cow". The publication presents a global overview of the status of the dugong and its management in the many countries that make up its range. It is hoped the report will help individual countries develop their own, more detailed conservation plans for the species. More information.

IUCN/SSC HELPS DEVELOP GLOBAL PLANT CONSERVATION STRATEGY
SSC headed IUCN's input to the recent meeting convened by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which outlined sound technical rationales for specific targets that will be included in the emerging Global Plant Conservation Strategy. The meeting, held on Gran Canaria, 11-13 February, was called for by the CBD technical meeting (SBSTTA) in November 2001 at which the Parties requested that experts refine the quantitative elements of the 16 targets in the draft strategy, providing a scientific and technical rationale in each case. It involved CBD Parties and a wide range of organisations with extensive conservation expertise. Targets in which IUCN/SSC is a principal player include: developing a preliminary conservation assessment of all plant species; ensuring that the world's plant species are conserved in situ, developing management plans for at least 100 major alien species that threaten plants; incorporating the importance of plant diversity and the need for its conservation into communication, education and public awareness programmes; and strengthening networks for plant conservation at national, regional and international levels. More information.

NEW GLOBAL MAMMAL PARTNERSHIP
SSC is seeking to develop new ideas on biodiversity assessment, using mammals as a test case. Mammals have not been used to their full potential in guiding the establishment of biodiversity conservation priorities. To address this, SSC is developing a Global Mammal Assessment (GMA) to review the status of all mammal species (over 5,000 described species), mapping geographic distributions, assessing the degree of threat, and recording essential habitats and important threats for each species. This project contributes to an initiative involving several conservation organisations: Conservation International (CI/CABS), IUCN/SSC, NatureServe, BirdLife International, and WWF to map the distributions of all terrestrial vertebrate species (mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians) by the end of 2004. A number of mammal data initiatives have emerged among various organizations and a partial overlap across some of these initiatives calls for interaction between them. In light of this, a meeting of representatives of the major initiatives was held in early February at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in California. The meeting resulted in the creation of the Global Mammal Partnership comprising IUCN/SSC, the University of Virginia, Institute of Applied Ecology/University of Rome-Italy, NatureServe, CI/CABS, WWF, Institute of Zoology-ZSL/Imperial College-UK and Bat Conservation International. Information and maps compiled by SSC and the various partner initiatives will be kept in a database (of SSC's Species Information Service) and sent to appropriate SSC Specialist Groups and other experts for validation. For more information, contact Mariano Gimenez Dixon at: mgd@iucn.org

AFRICAN ELEPHANT SPECIALIST GROUP (AfESG) MEETING
The AfESG held its members meeting in Shaba National Reserve in Kenya from 28 January to 1 February. A large majority of the membership was present, representing 20 countries. AfESG staff and several observers, mainly representatives of genetic laboratories and donor organizations also attended. The technical agenda included five major sessions on: the species issue (see following paragraph), Red Listing, translocations and reintroductions, Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC), Monitoring Illegal killing of Elephant (MIKE) and the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS). A group work session allowed the identification of priority issues for consideration for inclusion in the Reintroduction Guidelines that are being developed by the Group. The AfESG now includes the existing Data Review, and HEC Task Forces, the newly-created Re-introduction Task Force, and the Red List, and Technical Advances Working Groups. The latter will provide technical advice on elephant tracking methods. A brief report of the meeting and some of the presentations will be published in the next issue of Pachyderm, the AfESG newsletter. Refer to the AfESG website for more information.
The African Elephant - how many species?
In August 2001, a paper from a team made up of scientists from the US-based National Cancer Institute and Kenya's Mpala Research Institute was published in the journal Science. It provided evidence to support the view that the African elephant should be split into two species: forest and savannah. Preliminary unpublished results from another study suggest that the West African populations might belong to a third species. The AfESG requested additional sampling and analyses before taking a position. It was decided to continue to recognise one species, Loxodonta africana, but as far as possible, the Group will distinguish between forest, savannah and West African forms.

DECLINING AMPHIBIAN POPULATIONS TASK FORCE (DAPTF) SEED GRANTS
The IUCN/SSC DAPTF is currently completing its allocation of Seed Grants for 2002. It has received 57 applications from 30 countries, and expects to fund some 30 projects, an outlay of about $54,000. The budget this year has been enhanced by generous contributions from Conservation International and the U.S. Department of the Interior's Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI). During the period 1992 to 2001, the DAPTF funded 78 projects through its Seed Grant programme, an outlay of $139,074. These projects are distributed across 34 different countries. In this year's round, five new countries will be added to the list. Notable 'firsts' among the projects being funded this year are projects in Iran and Madagascar, and two projects on caecilians, a poorly-known group of limbless, burrowing amphibians. Feedback from completed Seed Grant projects indicates that, on average, each project yields two papers in refereed journals. More importantly, grant holders have, on average, been able to raise a further $20 in funding for every $1 that DAPTF has awarded them. More information can be found on the DAPTF website.

SHARPENED OBJECTIVE FOR SUSTAINABLE USE SPECIALIST GROUP
The SSC Sustainable Use Specialist Group overall guiding objective for 2002-2004 has been sharpened to focus on the relationship between sustainable use of biological systems and human livelihoods. Until the next IUCN World Conservation Congress, SUSG will use a multidisciplinary, scientific, and technical approach to understand and test how the sustainability of use of biological systems is related to human livelihoods, and communicate this knowledge to policy- and decision-makers. The network of regional Specialist Groups will contribute to the collation of global experience on the relationship of livelihoods and sustainable use, and the compilation of tools and methodologies for analysing this dimension of sustainability. These activities will result in new SUSG products that will be delivered to key policy forums and to IUCN members. The revised SUSG Programme Framework is available from the SUSG website.

NEW VETERINARY PUBLICATIONS
Determination of the cause of death in wild animals is often difficult and may require the close cooperation of a number of disciplines. Post-mortem procedures for wildlife veterinarians and field biologists guides wildlife veterinarians, game biologists or game wardens through a post-mortem examination and the correct selection, preservation and transportation of pathological and biological specimens. Quarantine and health screening protocols for wildlife prior to translocation and release in to the wild addresses the disease considerations of wild animal releases, assembling information on quarantine, screening procedures, and treatment vaccination suggestions for mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. Both booklets are edited by Dr Mike Woodford, a member (and former chair) of the SSC Veterinary Specialist Group and are available from http://www.oie.int/eng/publicat/en_publicat.htm

MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT
The 3rd Global Taxonomy Workshop takes place in South Africa, 8-12 July 2002 with the theme: Towards Sustainable Development: Partnerships for Building Demand-Driven Taxonomic Capacity. This event is being organised in collaboration with the CBD Secretariat specifically to help support implementation of the Global Taxonomy Initiative (www.biodiv.org/programmes/cross-cutting/taxonomy/default.asp) and help lessen the taxonomic impediment to biodiversity management. For further details or to register, see www.bionet-intl.org or email bionet@bionet-intl.org.

If you would like more information on any of the items included in this issue or wish to submit an item to future issues, please contact Anna Knee at alk@iucn.org; tel: +41 (0)22 999 0153.