Species vulnerabilities and protections

Red list bird species are those in most urgent need of our help because they are in critical decline. Those species listed as amber or red can be viewed here (on the NBN Atlas website). The British Trust for Ornithology listed 70 species of bird on the Red list in 2021. A similar listing by British Birds is available here (PDF format).

This 2010 Act is wide-ranging in the protections it provides to Britain's countryside, but Schedule 5 lists species of European plants covered by the Act. You can view the Act here, and the list of Schedule 5 plants here.

The Habitats Directives form the cornerstones of EU biodiversity policy. The Habitats Directives aims to protect over a thousand species, including mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish invertebrates, and plants, and 230 characteristic habitat types. It was adopted as EU law in 1992. Habitat types that are listed in the Directives' Annex I and II are listed by the Joint Conservation Committee, a list that covers both Priority and Non-priority species habitats. Animal and plant species covered by these annexes are listed by the European Environment Agency.

The International Union for Conservation (IUCN) of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species was established in 1964 and is the world's most comprehensive information source on global extinction risk status of animal and plant species. Their list of more than 150,000 species (in June 2023) can be searched on their website. Those species on these lists are co-ordinated in Britain by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), the statutory nature advisor to all four UK countries. They provide a spreadsheet of IUCN of red lists in the UK.

The International Union for Conservation (IUCN) of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species was established in 1964 and is the world's most comprehensive information source on global extinction risk status of animal and plant species. Their list of more than 150,000 species (in June 2023) can be searched on their website. Those species on these lists are co-ordinated in Britain by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), the statutory nature advisor to all four UK countries. They provide a spreadsheet of IUCN of red lists in the UK.

The International Union for Conservation (IUCN) of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species was established in 1964 and is the world's most comprehensive information source on global extinction risk status of animal and plant species. Their list of more than 150,000 species (in June 2023) can be searched on their website. Those species on these lists are co-ordinated in Britain by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), the statutory nature advisor to all four UK countries. They provide a spreadsheet of IUCN of red lists in the UK.

The rare or scarce conservation statuses are criteria applied to species under threat. They record the presence of species in a hectad, a 10 kilometre square grid. If a species is nationally rare, it is found in 15 or fewer hectads in Britain. If a species is scarce (also referred to as notable), it is found in between 16 and 100 hectads.

The Sussex Notable Bird List consists of species that are particularly scarce or vulnerable to development. It includes species which are either on the Birds of Conservation Concern Red and Amber lists or Schedule 1 species known to have bred in Sussex, or have been recorded in summer and may breed in the future. These species have been decided on by the Sussex Ornithological Society (SOS) who maintain the full list of Sussex bird species, amongst which are indicated those that are notable and/or of concern.

UK Biodiversity Action Plan Priority Species were those that were identified as being the most threatened and requiring conservation action under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UK BAP). Various lists of these species are available (in PDF format) on the JNCC website.