Statement of Principles

The purpose behind the Species Status Assessment project (SSA) is to focus conservation effort where it is most needed to conserve biodiversity in Great Britain.

This project will

characterise the degree of threat to species and assign threat status;
identify relevant data sources;
keep track of international conservation status via SSC/IUCN;
determine what is of international importance in GB;
assign native/non-native status;
identify the links between the project and conservation practice.

The main principles behind the project are

Species status assessment should be a flexible system within an agreed set of guidelines (thus, for example, a Red/Amber/Green system may well be compatible with the guidelines).
Assessment of conservation status should be separated from the process of prioritising conservation action.
Categories of threat should be separated from categories of frequency.
Decision-making in applying conservation status to species should largely be devolved to the experts. No one expert/group of experts should be overstretched.
Any system of species status assessment should be stable and repeatable.
Species status lists should be disseminated effectively, and all methods should be transparent.

Taxa to be covered by the project

The project is intended to cover all taxa, but those assigned to the IUCN categories of Least Concern, Data Deficient and Not Evaluated will receive no further treatment except to be labelled as such in the NBN Species Dictionary. Species assigned to other ('higher') threat categories will be submitted for listing in the SoCC (Species of Conservation Concern ) list. Criteria for these are therefore essentially the same as for the SoCC list:

Red List species
Near Threatened species (including SoCC localisation and decline categories)
International responsibility
Priority (BAP) species
Species included on legislative lists

Other environmentally or economically important species may also be included in the project in time.

Assignation of native/non-native status

Species will be given a native/non-native status before being assigned a threat status.
Non-native species which are casuals, recent introductions (Neophytes/Neofauna) or accidental occurrences will not be given a threat status.
Non-native species which are Archaeophytes/Archaeofauna will be given a threat status.

In cases of lack of information or reasonable doubt, species will be treated as 'native' for the purposes of this project.