Current projects – IUCN–ECCB European Red List project

The ECCB is currently working on a new Red List for Europe, in a three-year project led by IUCN, supported by EU LIFE funding (LIFE14 PRE BE 001 Establishing a European Red List of Bryophytes, Pteridophytes, Saproxylic Beetles, Terrestrial Molluscs and Vascular Plants). The Associated Beneficiaries are the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic and ArtDatabanken from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. See the official project website  for a full list of donors and for further information. The entire European bryophyte flora is being assessed against the IUCN criteria to produce threat categories for all 1816 species. The work will be distributed throughout Europe and draft assessments, produced by a small number of ECCB assessors/co-ordinators, will be discussed at a series of regional workshop meetings over the next two years. The project is being implemented in collaboration with the IUCN Species Survival Commission, with Bryophyte Specialist Group Red List Authority Co-ordinator, Ariel Bergamini, playing a key role in the assessment review process. A final Red List will then be published by IUCN in 2018. Ana Nieto (European Biodiversity Conservation Officer at IUCN) is overall Project Co-ordinator and Nick Hodgetts (ECCB Chair) is Project Advisor.  The flora is being divided on an approximately regional basis. The following list shows this division, with numbers of species and the names of the regional assessors/co-ordinators:​

• Central – Norbert Schnyder (n.schnyder@access.uzh.ch); Christian Schröck (christian.schroeck@gmx.at) – 239 species
• East – Nadya Konstantinova (nadya50@list.ru); Elvira Baisheva (elvbai@mail.ru) – 201 species
• Macaronesia – Manuela Sim-Sim (mmsim-sim@fc.ul.pt) – 175 species
• North – Tomas Hallingbäck (Tomas.Hallingback@slu.se) – 306 species
• North-west – Nick Hodgetts (nick1901@hotmail.co.uk) – 280 species
• South – Patrizia Campisi (patrizia.campisi@unipa.it); Annalena Cogoni (cogoni@unica.it) – 214 species
• South-east – Marko Sabovjević (sabmar@hotmail.com) – 235 species
• South-west – Cecilia Sérgio (csergio@fc.ul.pt) – 166 species

A spreadsheet listing the allocation of species can be downloaded here. The updated European checklists for liverworts, hornworts and mosses also can be downloaded (February 2016 versions). 

Pictures from training meeting of IUCN-ECCB European Red List project, Paris, France
Ana Nieto, IUCN Project coordinator	Elvira Baisheva,  Ariel Bergamini,  Patrizia Campisi,  Annalena Cogoni,  Tomas Hallingbäck,  Neil Lockhart,  Marko Sabovjević,  Norbert Schnyder, Manuela Sim-Sim

The regional workshops will be organised from September 2016 into 2017, and it is hoped that many other regional/country contact bryologists will be able to contribute, either by attending or submitting data. The project will be a team effort, and can only work with the co-operation of as many European bryologists as possible. All major contributors will be included as authors of the eventual Red List. The final document, an officially IUCN-sanctioned Red List, will be a powerful tool for all of us, of immense importance in moving bryophyte conservation forward in Europe.