She rewrote the global Red List, which describes which species are in trouble, and warned that the world must restore its ecological balance or pay a steep price.
When Georgina Mace was thinking about taking on a new challenge — to improve a system for determining which species around the world were at risk of going extinct — “my boss at the time advised me not to touch it,” she said in 2016, because the task “could end up being a lot of work for no purpose at all.”
Luckily for the planet, she disagreed.
Dr. Mace, one of the world’s most prominent conservation biologists, went on to provide a firm scientific foundation for a list of endangered species that had for many years been compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Called the Red List, it helps governments and environmental groups decide how to focus their efforts.
The Red List was initially “a haphazard affair” when it was created in 1964, said Simon Stuart, director of strategic conservation for Synchronicity Earth, an environmental charity, and a former official of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. There were no solid criteria for determining which animals should or should not be listed. Rather, “politics and personalities played a big role in decisions,” he said in a phone interview, and the list tended toward so-called “charismatic” species, like the great apes.
In the early 1990s, Dr. Mace, then working for the Zoological Society of London, began the long process of developing the criteria for a more scientifically disciplined list. The challenge: to develop a practical method rigorous enough to be convincing but simple enough to be rapidly applicable to thousands of species.
Georgina Mace, Who Shaped List of Endangered Species, Dies at 67
When Georgina Mace was thinking about taking on a new challenge — to improve a system for determining which species around the world were at risk of going extinct — “my boss at the time advised me not to touch it,” she said in 2016, because the task “could end up being a lot of work for no purpose at all.”
Luckily for the planet, she disagreed.
Dr. Mace, one of the world’s most prominent conservation biologists, went on to provide a firm scientific foundation for a list of endangered species that had for many years been compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Called the Red List, it helps governments and environmental groups decide how to focus their efforts.
The Red List was initially “a haphazard affair” when it was created in 1964, said Simon Stuart, director of strategic conservation for Synchronicity Earth, an environmental charity, and a former official of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. There were no solid criteria for determining which animals should or should not be listed. Rather, “politics and personalities played a big role in decisions,” he said in a phone interview, and the list tended toward so-called “charismatic” species, like the great apes.
In the early 1990s, Dr. Mace, then working for the Zoological Society of London, began the long process of developing the criteria for a more scientifically disciplined list. The challenge: to develop a practical method rigorous enough to be convincing but simple enough to be rapidly applicable to thousands of species.
Georgina Mace, Who Shaped List of Endangered Species, Dies at 67
