Progress towards the achievement of Target 12 by the Friends of Target 12, June 2014 Alliance for Zero Extinction Partnership (AZE) Of the 587 Alliance for Zero Extinction sites harbouring the last remaining population of an Endangered or Critically Endangered species, nearly half have some level of protection. Meanwhile, 230 sites in 39 countries do not overlap any protected areas, and should be prioritised for immediate protection as a contribution to Aichi targets. Safeguarding these small areas that collectively span only 93,000 km2 is an effective strategy to halt the extinction of hundreds of imperilled species (Hsu et al, 2014). Amphibian Survival Alliance (ASA) In 2013 the Amphibian Survival Alliance made a bold move to align our vision with that of Target 12 - We envision a world in which the extinction of known threatened species of amphibians has been prevented and their conservation status, particularly of those most in decline, has been improved and sustained. Target 12 now underpins our every action as an Alliance. As we move forward we are eager to engage with other active Friends of Target 12 to increase our collaborative impact under this initiative. Over the course of the next two years we will be investing in the conservation of a range of species at priority sites around the world. With the launch of the Leapfrog Habitat Conservation Fund a multimillion-dollar annual habitat conservation fund, we are now well positioned to help our partners drive forward vital conservation efforts. Some of the projects already supported by Leapfrog are highlighted below and many more are still to come. In addition to habitat protection, the Alliance has been actively funding work to reduce the negative impact of diseases and exotoxins to amphibians and with this being the 50th year of The IUCN Red List, we are actively fundraising for the upkeep of the amphibians on The IUCN Red List while directly supporting the reassessment of species affected by our projects. Amphibian Red List Authority The IUCN SSC Amphibian Red List Authority (Amphibian RLA) is the branch of the Amphibian Specialist Group (ASG) responsible for maintaining the amphibian extinction risk assessments on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. To equip our new partner institutions and new individual RLA members to update amphibian assessments, remote training on the Red List methodology and associated tools was completed by 23 Amphibian RLA members, 10 interns and two Amphibian RLA institutional partners from 2013 to date. In addition, four Red List training workshops were conducted in 2013-early 2014, both directed at RLA members (Sydney, Australia and Chengdu, China) and the wider scientific community (Salvador, Brazil and Iquitos, Peru). To facilitate collaboration between RLA members and the wider herpetological community on the assessment or reassessment of amphibian species, the Amphibian RLA launched a new and improved Amphibian Assessment Forum online platform. This tool was developed in collaboration with ASG and iNaturalist. Four regional or national-themed forums are already in place, with an additional two in the process of being set up for Panama and the Philippines. The Amphibian RLA is exploring the development of more forums as more working groups are set up and new institutional partners join the Amphibian RLA. Last year saw a total of 412 amphibian extinction risk assessments and reassessments submitted and published on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™. A total of 205 amphibian assessments and reassessments have already been submitted for Red List version 2014. While this is a significant improvement from previous years, the work is far from over. The number of reassessments that need to be completed by the end of 2014 is well over 4,400. This high number is due to the 10-year lifespan of IUCN assessments, and most amphibian assessments were published in the 2004 Global Amphibian Assessment initiative. In addition, over 800 newly described species also need to be assessed for the first time. Habitat Protection A consortium of partners including the Amphibian Survival Alliance, Rainforest Trust (RT), Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC) and the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) came together to enable local partner Fundación Jocotoco to purchase 6,100 acres of critical wildlife habitat in Antisana, Ecuador. Previously, Fundación Jocotoco had purchased Sunfohuayco, an adjoining property of close to 6000 acres. The mammoth property acquisition will create a permanent refuge for three threatened species of frogs from the genus Pristimantis found nowhere else and the largest population of Andean Condors in the Northern Andes. The 6,100 acre property, called Hacienda Antisanilla, was acquired to complete a project by the Ministry of Natural Resources of Ecuador, Fundación Jocotoco, the Municipality of Quito, and the Quito Water Authority that will both protect endangered species and secure an important source of drinking water for Ecuador’s capital city. The total protected area by this group amounts to approximately 270,000 acres. Antisana is of critical global importance for biodiversity and highlighted as an Alliance for Zero Extinction site due to the presence of no less than three species of threatened frogs – Pristimantis acerus, Pristimantis ignicolor, and Pristimantis lividus - found nowhere else. Sadly, the Jambato Toad (Atelopus ignescens), once common in Antisana, has already gone extinct. Another notable conservation success for amphibians is the Sierra Caral of Guatemala. In May of this year, Guatemala’s National Congress created the Sierra Caral National Protected Area, making it the nation’s first federally protected area to be established in seven years. The core of the new 47,000-acre protected area is the Sierra Caral Amphibian Conservation Reserve. The Sierra Caral, an isolated mountain range near Guatemala’s Caribbean coast, is not only home to many endemic species, but is also a natural corridor and meeting place for many North and South American species. The protected area provides habitat for a dozen globally threatened amphibians – five found nowhere else in the world – and three species of threatened birds. Scientific explorations in the Sierra Caral have resulted in discoveries of new beetle, salamander, frog, and snake species. A consortium of more than twenty international conservation groups, led by GWC, partnered with FUNDAECO to raise the funds needed to purchase the original amphibian reserve. Critical support also came from the Amphibian Survival Alliance, Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act, Rainforest Trust, International Conservation Fund of Canada (ICFC), American Bird Conservancy, and Conservation International, among others. Important Amphibian Areas The goal of Important Amphibian Areas (IAAs) is to identify, protect and manage a global network of sites important for the long-term persistence of amphibian populations across their natural ranges. It is a systematic approach to identify those sites that contribute significantly to the maintenance of amphibian diversity, and for which a site-based approach is appropriate - similar to BirdLife’s successful IBA program. The sites are a subset of Key Biodiversity Areas and follow the same methodology, only restricted exclusively to amphibian species. We are developing the IAA concept together with IUCN, which is developing new standards for KBA definition, and BirdLife, which currently curates the existing KBA-IBA database. We have discussed with AmphibiaWeb the possibility of using their mapping skills to set up an online IAA catalogue, aided by the California Academy of Sciences and the University of Trier. Bern Convention (Council of Europe) In the framework of its Programme of Activities for 2013-2014 the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (Bern Convention) has carried out a series of activities targeted at assisting its 51 Contracting Parties in their work towards reaching Aichi Target 12, and namely: Combating wild-bird crimes through prevention, investigation and prosecution of illegal killing, trapping and trade of wild birds Illegal killing, trapping and trade of wild birds are among the main causes of human-driven mortality of migratory birds. Concerned by the extent and negative trends of these activities in the European continent, in 2011 the Bern Convention promoted the organisation of the first "European Conference on illegal killing of birds" (Larnaca, Cyprus), delivering the so-called “Larnaca Declaration” to promote a “Zero tolerance approach toward illegal killing of birds” - as well as Recommendation No. 155 (2011) on the illegal killing, trapping and trade of wild birds. In order to move forward from the “vision” set in Larnaca to the “Action” and concrete implementation, the Parties to the Bern Convention met again in Tunis, in 2013, and prepared the “Tunis Action Plan for the eradication of illegal killing, trapping and trade of wild birds, 2013-2020”. The Tunis Action Plan has been then adopted by the Standing Committee through Recommandation No 164 (2013) on the implementation of the Tunis Action Plan 2013-2020 for the eradication of illegal killing, trapping and trade of wild birds. The Action Plan foresees the setting-up of concrete tools in the field of enforcement of legislation, biological matters, institutional aspects, and awareness and education. The implementation of the Action Plan started already this year with, among others, the setting-up of a European Network