Brazilian efforts towards achieving a comprehensive extinction risk assessment for its known flora

• Main Authors: Eline Martins, Gustavo Martinelli, Rafael Loyola
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Instituto de Pesquisas Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro
• Series: Rodriguésia
• Subjects: metas de Aichi; panorama da biodiversidade; Convenção da Diversidade Biológica; Lista Vermelha da IUCN; espécies ameaçadas
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2175-78602018000401529&lng=en&tlng=en

Abstract Brazil houses nearly 36,400 native terrestrial plant species. The country is a signatory of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) and has to develop tools to achieve GSPC targets. Target 2 states that countries must undertake risk assessments of its entire known plant species by 2020. Here, we offer a panorama on how far has Brazil gone towards achieving this target. We compiled data on all risk assessments for plant species ever made in the country and produced the first synthesis of results with respect to these assessments. We found that the Brazilian Red List Authority for plants has assessed the extinction risk of 5,646 species so far, which corresponds to 15.5% of all known flora in Brazil. Among these species, 2,738 (48%) are currently threatened. Those species are distributed across all Brazilian Biomes and states. Families with the highest number of threatened species are Asteraceae and Bromeliaceae. We conclude that Brazil is far from achieving GSPC target 2 by 2020. However, given the enormous flora of the country and the huge amount of effort and resources put into this particular task, Brazil is following a good path towards a reliable assessment of it entire flora.