08/03/2023 – 11:03 am
What do the Araripe soldier bird, the river worm fish, the plateau windbreaker, the bush aruá and the itambé frog have in common?
These five animals of the Brazilian fauna are part of the list of 364 national species classified as “critically endangered” of extinction, according to an online platform launched this Wednesday, 2, by the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio).
The platform, called the Biodiversity Extinction Risk Assessment System (Salve), can be accessed via the website and gathers information on almost 15,000 species of Brazilian fauna, classified including their risk of extinction – according to the parameters of the International Union for Biodiversity. Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
One of the main objectives is to facilitate the management of the extinction risk assessment process and make this information more accessible, contributing to the generation of knowledge and the implementation of public policies aimed at biodiversity conservation.
“Our objective is not simply to provide information, but to use it as a public policy instrument, including in companies, to prevent endangered species and especially species that are already extinct. This is the great purpose of which this work is part”, said the president of ICMBio, Mauro Pires.
Of the total number of evaluated species, 5,513 have a file already published and 1,253 are in some category of threat. Through the search engine, it is possible to enter the desired species (by common name or scientific name) and obtain information such as group, category, last evaluation update, states, biome, taxonomic classification, distribution, natural history and population.
The platform began to be built in 2016, in a joint effort led by ICMBio and with support from the Pró-Espécies Project, financed by the Global Environment Facility Trust Fund (GEF), coordinated by the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change and implemented by the Brazilian Fund for Biodiversity (Funbio) and WWF-Brasil.
According to the coordinator of the Fauna Species Extinction Risk Assessment Coordination (Cofau) and ICMBio environmental analyst, Rodrigo Jorge, the platform will contribute to the conservation of endangered species. “Brazil is recognized worldwide for harboring the greatest biodiversity on the planet, and by updating and making this data available it will be possible to reinforce the implementation of actions that promote the conservation of our fauna”, he said.
The Brazilian fauna is formed by more than 100 thousand species of animals, including vertebrates and invertebrates. All over 9,000 known vertebrate species have been assessed.
As for invertebrates, which account for the vast majority of the fauna, there are criteria for selecting the species that go through the evaluations. In addition to subsidizing the development of public preservation policies, the platform also manages to provide an overview of the situation of each biome.
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