Red Book

The Red Book

The Red Data Book of the Russian Federation is a state document comprising set of data on rare and endangered species of animals and plants, as well as of the measures to be taken to protect and to restore them.

The Red Book is an illustrated collected volume of the rarest and threatened species.
The main missions of the Red Book are to survey and inventory the rare and endangered species of animals, plants and fungi; supply relevant information on them; to expound key methods of wildlife preservation and restoration. These tasks are set globally (The IUCN Red List) as well as at the national and regional levels (e.g. Russian Red Data Book, Southern Urals Red Book, etc.).
The history of the red books dates back to 1902, when several countries signed in Paris the first red book of the kind, namely , the International Convention for the Protection of Birds, Useful to Agriculture. It may be considered the first international agreement for the protection of biodiversity.
In 1948, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) was established — the UN non-governmental organization, uniting, in 1984, 502 organizations in 130 world countries.
In 1949, specialist public Species Survival Commission was established. The USSR was represented by G. P. Dementyev (1956), A. G. Bannikov (1960),  V. G. Geptner (1966).
The Commission set itself the tasks to study rare species of threatened animals and plants, draft international and supra-national conventions and agreements, to inventory those species and to produce corresponding recommendations for their preservation.
The Commission’s priority is to compile global checklist of endangered animals. To emphasize the special significance of the inventory, Peter Scott who chaired the Commission up to 1978, suggested to name it the Red Book as the red color is an alarm symbol.
Today, there is hardly a person who has never heard of the red books. In 1963, the first IUCN Red Data Book was published.  Its two volumes presented the summary of 211 mammal and 312 bird taxa
In 1966-71, the second, the much larger edition was published. It comprised data on 236 species (292 subspecies) of mammals in the volume I, 287 species (341 subspecies) of birds in the Volume II), and 119 species and subspecies of reptiles plus 34 species and subspecies of amphibians.
The third edition published since 1972 comprised the data of 528 species and subspecies of mammals, 619 species of birds, 153 species and subspecies of reptiles and amphibians.
The most recent fourth edition of 1978 – 1980 comprises 226 species and 79 subspecies of mammals, 181 species and 77 subspecies of birds, 77 species and 21 subspecies of reptiles, 35 species and 5 subspecies of amphibians, 168 species and 25 subspecies of fish. Among them 71 restored species and subspecies of mammals, 4 those of birds, and two of reptiles.
The USSR had its Red Book, and after the USSR collapsed, the newly established states published their own red lists. Moreover, today every RF region has got its own Red Book.
There is also the Black Book, or precisely speaking, dedicated pages in the end of the Red Book), numbering the species vanished from the earth since 1500 and on. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, as of 2008, 844 of animals are completely extinct, with thousand species of plants wiped out.

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