Out of the darkness: getting bird species off the critical list
The IUCN Red List category of a number of bird species occurring in Seychelles was recently revised.
In 2005, Seychelles Magpie-robin and Seychelles White-eye were all downlisted from Critically Endangered to Endangered. This is momentous news for conservation. It shows that conservation of birds and wider biodiversity is working, in the context of a global backdrop of widespread species declines and even extinctions. Stuart Butchart of the BirdLife International office in Cambridge, UK, explains how conservation status is worked out.