Are local species prioritization lists sufficient for protecting endangered plants? Israeli red list as a test case

Conserving species from extinction requires risk assessment and ranking for conservation priorities. The IUCN criteria of extinction risk are currently accepted globally, but only a small fraction of species were evaluated. When assessing species' extinction risk, sufficient information, in particular rate of population decline, is often partial or missing. Here we utilized the red list of Israeli endangered plant species, which prioritizes them for conservation, and evaluated their local extinction risk using IUCN criteria for local assessment. We found a relatively high similarity between the Israeli red number value and the IUCN assessments. Most pronouncedly, the habitat vulnerability index, used in the Israeli method, is correlated with the IUCN parameter of extinction rate in the last decade. We conclude that in the case of Israel, prioritization ranking of endangered species based on locally available information is a powerful tool for conservation even when some species information is lacking, facilitating local decision-making. This finding may apply also to other countries using a local assessment system.