Downlisting of IUCN Threatened Species Protected by Rainforest Trust and Partners
Research Location:
Implemented: Global
Conservation Partners:
Rainforest Trust
Student Researcher
Raquel Mandojana, Major: Integrative Conservation; Major: SociologyStudent Researcher
Kaitlyn Potts, Major: Integrative Conservation; Major: Environment and Sustainability (policy track)Faculty Mentor
Dr. David WaldienProject Description
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List is the standard that is used to determine the status of species to guide conservation efforts, but deciding when to downlist species as a result of conservation success is often challenging for conservation organizations. W&M students are working with Rainforest Trust and their collaborating partners to compile existing data on habitat and wildlife protection efforts to explore how to evaluate conservation success and make decisions about downlisting species.
Since its founding in 1988, Rainforest Trust has supported the protection of more than 42 million acres of land across the global tropics. This protection has been effective: remotely sensed data indicate that 99% of the forest we have protected remains intact. However, gauging the impact of protection on the species that live in these forests has proven challenging.
Even for projects that were designed specifically to benefit a single species, gathering the necessary data to petition for downlisting - including population surveys, threat assessments, and habitat suitability modeling - has been prohibitively difficult. However, there are many species in the portfolio that would likely meet the criteria for downlisting, and some of our partner organizations do maintain long-term data on focal species.
While it is recognized that downlisting species serves as a metric for conservation success and will free up efforts to focus on other high-risk species while maintaining downlisting species, many organizations lack standard frameworks for downlisting species and may fear that listing may risk continued support or limit essential resources for conservation.
Raquel Mandojana'25 and Kaitlyn Potts'25 are working with Rainforest Trust and implementing partners (both remotely and on-site) to collate existing data on key species in our portfolio, conduct additional research, mapping, and modeling, and prepare one or a few cases to the IUCN for downlisting. They will then work with partners to explore a framework for downlisting that ensures continued investment in conservation while celebrating the success of conservation initiatives and opening up opportunities to center work on other species.
