How to sell National Red Lists to funders

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National Red Lists are more than just a series of assessments. A Red List assessment is unlikely to be supported for its own sake by many donors anymore, especially those donors from the development and implementation sector. The most successful funding proposals go beyond just asking for money for assessments and include elements that support other identified needs such as: training, capacity building, achieving a conservation benefit by applying data gathered during the assessment process.

For example: The UK Darwin Initiative, which puts emphasis on knowledge transfer and capacity building as part of its funding objectives, funded the creation of a threatened plant list and plant checklist in Lao PDR, as part of a project “Taxonomic training for a neglected biodiversity hotspot within Lao PDR”. The project was designed to provide training in tropical botanical taxonomy to staff at institutes in Lao PDR, and to establish the foundation for National Species Database and Threatened Plant List. Other outputs of the project included: a multilingual botanical dictionary and a National Species Database. Capacity building, tangible conservation outputs, community projects are all things that funders are looking for, and go beyond mere species assessments.