Institution responsible: FOEN, species management division

Coordinators:  National centres of flora and fauna coordination

Operational Phase: 2000 - 2020

In 1999, the FOEN required that the CSCF develops a strategy of (re)evaluation of the red list status of species from various groups of Swiss fauna.  This request was the logical prolongation of its will to give the national centres of coordination (CSCF, CRSF, KARCH, S.O.S) the responsibility to document the evolution of the populations of the rare and/or threatened species of Switzerland, which is an essential complement to its follow-up projects on the more common species (Bdm-CH).

The adopted strategy is based on three principles:

• the UICN categories and criteria defined must be used to evaluate the species status of the groups treated;
• resorting to the UICN categories and criteria implies that fieldwork must be made to bring up to date or publish the red list of the groups for which available information is insufficient;
• the groups treated in priority must be representative of one of the three principal macrohabitats of Switzerland:  aquatic environments (lentic and lotic), open dry and wet environments, forests.

and is carried out in two phases for each selected group:

Preliminary processing  is used for:

• compiling the maximum of available data on the concerned group (acquired from public or private collections, seeking of grey data for example)
• defining the sampling protocol (number and localisation of the sites to be prospected) by means of an analysis of the available data;  it envisages on one hand the sampling of sites or areas never prospected and on the other hand the re-sampling of already known sites
• defining the field method (which will be imposed on the involved naturalists)

Operational Phase that includes:

• effective fieldwork,
• the identification of the gathered specimens and/or the validation of the observations made
• the analysis of the results and the drafting, then the editing of the new red list.