IUCN SSC Cactus and Succulent Plants Specialist Group

2019 Report

Bárbara Goettsch Kimberlie McCue

Co-Chairs Mission statement Network Bárbara Goettsch (1) The mission of the Cactus and Succulent Capacity building: four CSSG members trained Kimberlie McCue (2) Plant Specialist Group (CSSG) is to contribute as Red List Assessors. to the conservation of cactus and succulent Membership: increase in number of CSSG Red List Authority Coordinator plants through better understanding of their members, with 40 as goal. Raúl Puente (2) taxonomy, ecology and threats. Research activities: strategic planning of activities to conduct with host institution Desert Location/Affiliation Projected impact for the 2017-2020 Botanical Garden. (1) Global Species Programme, IUCN, quadrennium Synergy: hire a Programme Officer. Cambridge, UK By the end of the quadrennium, we envisage Communicate (2) Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix, a priority conservation plan to conduct activi- Communication: (1) publish a CSSG Newsletter; Arizona, US ties on the ground to improve the conservation (2) build a presence on social media platforms. status of highly threatened cactus species. We Number of members will have generated the Red List assessments Activities and results 2019 38 for other complete groups of succulent plants that will enable us to start setting and planning Assess Social networks conservation. We will have a more diverse CSSG Red List Facebook: that includes members from a wider geography. i. The majority of the 311 Red List assess- IUCN SSC Cactus and Succulent Plants ments committed for the quadrennium were Specialist Group Targets for the 2017-2020 quadrennium done during two workshops held in 2018. Instagram: iucn_cssg However, we had a number of Agave and Yucca Assess Twitter: @CssgSsc species, mainly from the US, that could not be Red List: three hundred succulent plant species completed during these workshops. In order to assessed. complete these assessments, we have been Research activities: (1) one scientific paper working remotely with CSSG members from published; (2) Alliance for Zero Extinction sites the US, some of which are based in our host (AZEs) and Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) identi- institution, the Desert Botanical Garden (DBG), fied for all cacti. and include the Red List Authority Coordi- Plan nator. These assessments will be published on Planning: one national or regional conservation The Red List in 2020. In addition, we are final- action plan for cacti produced. ising the assessment review process of Aloe species from Madagascar, with the support of Policy: participate in one policy-related forum. the Madagascar Plant Specialist Group. These Research activities: one scientific paper assessments will also be published on The Red published. List in 2020. (KSR #1) Hesperoyucca newberryi Photo: Wendy Hodgson

Research activities i. One scientific paper related to illegal trade on cacti was published. The scientific manuscript entitled ‘Illegal wildlife trade and the persistence of “plant blindness”’, reported as “submitted” in our previous report, was published in July 2019 in the journal Plants, People, Planet (https://doi. org/10.1002/ppp3.10053). This paper was co-au- thored by many of the experts, including the CSSG Co-chair Bárbara Goettsch, who participated in the event ‘Raising the profile of plants in IWT policy: an evidence-based agenda setting workshop’ that took place during the Evidence to Action: Research to Address Illegal Wildlife Trade conference. This publication identifies the results found about practical opportunities for raising the profile of wild plant species that are actively traded across international markets. (KSR #32) ii. All AZE and KBA for cacti have been iden- tified (the CSSG provided support on this process, led by IUCN and Birdlife). (KSR #22) Plan Planning i. One national conservation action plan for cacti: action-planning workshop for Copiapoa cacti conservation in Chile. The CSSG is working on its first conservation action plan for a complete genus of cacti. In collaboration with Chester Zoo in the UK and Concepción Univer- sity in Chile, the three-day stakeholder workshop ‘Conservation action-planning workshop for Copiapoa cacti’ was initially planned for 25–27 May 2020. Unfortunately, it is now postponed as a result of travel restrictions and social distancing due to COVID-19. We are

Hesperoyucca newberryi (flowers) already looking at future potential dates that Photo: Carry Cannon will be revisited by the organisers in July 2020. Plant specialist groups - thematic break out - plants Photo: CSSG archives

Red List training workshop, Honduras Photo: CSSG archives

Red List training workshop, Honduras The workshop will focus on understanding Synergy Photo: CSSG archives the current conservation status of the genus i. The CSSG now has a part-time Programme Copiapoa, which comprises 22 cactus species Officer, Jael M. Wolf, who started in this role in endemic to the Atacama Desert in northern February 2019. This position is possible thanks Chile, their threats and conservation needs, to to the kind support of our host institution, the develop a 10-year conservation action plan. Desert Botanical Garden. Jael has been instru- (KSR #15) mental in developing our communication prod- Network ucts, including our bi-annual newsletter and Capacity building managing our social media campaigns. She also organises regular meetings among the i. Six members of the Specialist Group are now group members, supports new members in the officially trained as Red List Assessors. In addi- completion of the registration process, assists tion to the five CSSG members trained as Red on the Red List assessment process and helps List assessors in 2018, our Programme Officer, generating reports. She participated in the Jael M. Wolf, was officially trained during an Fourth SSC Leaders’ Meeting in Abu Dhabi, 6–9 Assessors Red List training workshop held October 2019, which was a great opportunity 18–21 February 2019 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. for her to meet many other members of the SSC (KSR #5) network. (KSR #1, 5, 29, 43) Membership Communicate i. The CSSG has been actively expanding the Communication taxonomic and geographic representation for the group. In 2019, we recruited a total of 20 i. The CSSG has been successful in producing new experts (three experts are pending regis- its newsletter. We now release a bi-annual tration but have verbally accepted), increasing newsletter in May/June and December to keep the number of members from 18 to 38. In addi- our members updated on the CSSG work, devel- tion to expanding the collective knowledge of opments, involvement in workshops and other cactus and agaves, our new members broaden activities, news including the addition of new the expertise of our group to policy, inva- members, grant-funding opportunities, and sive species, aloes and yuccas. Our group has promoting our social media platforms. become more diverse with the addition of new (KSR #28, 43) members from countries previously not repre- ii. Since April 2019, the CSSG has had a pres- sented in the CSSG such as Cuba, El Salvador, ence in the following three social media plat- Madagascar and Venezuela. We have also forms: Twitter (212 followers), Facebook (551 increased female participation and now 26% of followers) and Instagram (366 followers). our members are women. Through these platforms, we seek to raise Yucca baccata Yucca kanabensis Yucca utahensis Photo: Wendy Hodgson Photo: Wendy Hodgson Photo: Wendy Hodgson awareness among the general public about Acknowledgements Summary of activities 2019 the importance of cactus and succulent plants We thank our host institution Desert Botan- Components of Species Conservation Cycle: 4/5 and their conservation. We have been publi- ical Garden for their generous support of the Assess 3 ||| cising the work of the CSSG and IUCN’s Knowl- Specialist Group, kindly sponsoring the part- Plan 1 | edge Products, in particular The IUCN Red time position of our Programme Officer and Network 4 |||| List of Threatened Species, by pairing them her participation in a Red List training work- with interesting facts and visual campaigns to shop in Honduras. The Aloe workshop was Communicate 2 || inform people about these trendy and most possible thanks to the support of Royal Botan- Main KSRs addressed: 1, 5, 15, 22, 28, 29, 32, 43 at-risk groups of plants. In order to have a ical Gardens, Kew and The IUCN–Toyota Red List KSR: Key Species Result greater impact, we are teaming up with DBG’s Partnership; the Agave and Yucca workshop Marketing Communications Department to was possible thanks to Desert Botanical Garden improve our communication strategies and and The IUCN–Toyota Red List Partnership, with broaden our audience. For instance, we will be logistic support from Jardín Botánico de Cadey- working together to develop relevant content reta and technical support from CONABIO. that can be shared across the social media plat- We are grateful to the IUCN Species Survival forms of both organisations and will include Commission and the Environment Agency – images of cactus and succulent species from Abu Dhabi for sponsoring the participation the DBG’s living collections. (KSR #28, 43) of our Co-Chairs, Red List Authority and our Programme Officer in the Fourth SSC Leaders’ Meeting.