Written by Nikhil GhanekarNew Delhi | October 10, 2025 01:38 AM IST 3 min readThis assessment helps policymakers and wildlife biologists shape conservation recovery plans for those on the brink of extinction and focus resources on such species.THE CENTRE will for the first time assess the extinction risk of approximately 11,000 species, including 7,000 kinds of flora and 4,000 types of fauna — across the country to prepare a ‘national red list’, as part of its global commitment towards biodiversity protection.Union Minister of State for Environment,Forest and Climate Change Kirti Vardhan Singh unveiled the roadmap for the national-level five-year (2025-2030) assessment on Thursday, the first day of the World Congress of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) at Abu Dhabi.According to the assessment plan, the aim is to establish a nationally coordinated, participatory and upgradable ‘Red Listing’ system that accurately reflects the conservation status of India’s biodiversity.“To fulfil our commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF), India has launched the National Red List Assessment initiative, aligned with IUCN global standards,” Singh said.The IUCN is a global organization comprising 160 member countries and hundreds of civil society groups which work together towards environment and biodiversity protection. The World Conservation Congress convenes once every four years to set priorities on matters of conservation.The IUCN periodically examines the health of species and their extinction risks, and this is known as the IUCN Red List. Based on the assessment of their conservation status, the species are put into extinct, extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, near threatened, least concern, data deficient, and not evaluated list.This assessment helps policymakers and wildlife biologists shape conservation recovery plans for those on the brink of extinction and focus resources on such species.Story continues below this adIndia has 55,726 recorded plant species, including algae, fungi, and microbes. Of these 6.33%, comprising 3,501 plant species and 27 fungi species have been assessed for the IUCN Red List (Global).There are 1,04,561 documented fauna species, and the IUCN Red List assessment has been done for 7,516 of them, which is 7.2% of the recorded faunal diversity of India. The assessment results are alarming: 1,012 species (13.4%) of the total assessed are in the threatened category, and additionally, 289 species are near threatened.Furthermore, a large percentage of the species (13.8%) are in the data deficient category, which may or may not qualify for the threatened category. In terms of Indian species assessed by IUCN for Red List, 1,582 out of 6,568 species are endemic to the country, with high endemism in amphibians (79%) and reptiles (54.9%). Endemism means that these species are native to the respective country’s wild habitats.The project to create a ‘national red list’ to examine the threats to the country’s flora and fauna will be spearheaded by the Union Environment Ministry and will include the Botanical Survey of India, Zoological Survey of India and non-profit organisation Wildlife Institute of India. The assessment will bring together the country’s leading taxonomists, conservation biologists and subject experts under a unified framework, as per the government. An award-winning journalist with 14 years of experience, Nikhil Ghanekar is an Assistant Editor with the National Bureau [Government] of The Indian Express in New Delhi. He primarily covers environmental policy matters which involve tracking key decisions and inner workings of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. He also covers the functioning of the National Green Tribunal and writes on the impact of environmental policies on wildlife conservation, forestry issues and climate change. Nikhil joined The Indian Express in 2024. Originally from Mumbai, he has worked in publications such as Tehelka, Hindustan Times, DNA Newspaper, News18 and Indiaspend. In the past 14 years, he has written on a range of subjects such as sports, current affairs, civic issues, city centric environment news, central government policies and politics. ... Read MoreStay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd