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Red Book to be made public

HA NOI — The Viet Nam Red Book of Endangered Species is being revised and published at the end of this year, says Professor Dang Ngoc Thanh, vice-chairman of the Viet Nam Red Book compilation council and head of the book’s revision team.

The project was budgeted at VND300 million (US$20,500) and began last year.

Professor Thanh from the National Centre of Natural Sciences and Technology, under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, said that the new version will have an altered classification and criteria system.

"We (the council) agreed that the current edition’s qualitative method for classifying fauna species was not precise," Professor Thanh said. "This time, we are using a quantitative method, which seems to be more logical because it requires us to have specific figures, such as exact distribution areas, recorded changes in species over time, and numbers of species in certain areas.

The fauna component of the Red Book, covering 359 species, was published in 1992, while the flora component, covering 356 species, was published in 1996. The book divides both fauna and flora into five levels: endangered (facing extinction), vulnerable, rare, threatened and data deficient.

The revised edition has been expanded to ten levels which take into account the World Conversation Union (IUCN)’s standards. These are extinct, extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, lower risk, threatened, conservation dependent, data deficient and not evaluated.

Professor Thanh anticipated that the new method would decrease the number of species in the new book to 250 fauna species and 300 flora species.

"The issue of domestic raising of rare species will change the number of endangered species," Thanh said, "With the quantitative method, the endangered level of some species will also change."

He cited the tortoise-shell and spotted deer as examples. These two species were listed as facing extinction in the original Red Book. However, this was only partly true because both species were extinct in the wild, yet bred on farms. Under the new definitions these species will be explicitly classified as extinct in the wild.

Viet Nam and China are the only Asian countries that publish an endangered list covering both flora and fauna. Singapore and the Philippines’ lists offer only flora species.

Thanh said that the original Red Book was geared towards environmentalists, researchers and scientific institutions. The revised edition should be regarded as an official legal document for ordinary people and authorities, and should be consulted for issues surrounding wildlife farming and trafficking. — VNS

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