Red List

The Red List is a list of endangered species of wild fauna and flora. Internationally, the list is produced by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), while in Japan, the Ministry of the Environment as well as local authorities and NGOs produce their own lists respectively.

The Ministry of the Environment evaluates, from the biological viewpoint, how individual species of wild fauna and flora living in Japan are threatened to extinction and develops its own Red Lists. A list is produced for each taxonomic group: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, brackish-water/freshwater fish, insects, inland/freshwater shellfish and other invertebrates for animals; and vascular plants, bryophytes, algae, lichens, and fungi for plants.

The Ministry of the Environment conducts comprehensive review of the Red Lists roughly every 5 years and the 4th version of the Red Lists was released in Fiscal Year 2012. In Fiscal Year 2015, the Ministry changed the reviewing process and started to review the status of individual species as necessary, without setting a specific schedule, in terms of the species of which categories need to be re-examined due to such reasons as deterioration in their inhabitation status. The ministry, then released Red List 2015 with revised categories (ranks) of several species of mammals (Phoca vitulina and Capricornis crispus), in September 2015.

In addition, the Ministry also compiles information such as populations and inhabitation status of the species listed in the Red Lists into series of books, which is then published as the Red Data Book.

Red List and Red Data Book

The details of the Red Lists and the Red Data Book are available from the Red Data Book and the Red Lists of Endangered Species page on the Ikimono Log of Japan Integrated Biodiversity Information System of the website of Biodiversity Center of Japan.

Categories (Ranks) used in the Red Lists

The Red Lists evaluate how threatened each species is and categorizes them into seven categories.

Numbers of Species listed in the Red Lists

Please click here for information on the number of species by taxon and by category:

The Ministry of Environment Red Lists 2015 [released in September 2015］

The 4th Version of the Japanese Red Lists [released in August 2012; the List on brackish-water/freshwater fish was released in February 2013]

Q&A on the Red Lists, etc.

Frequently Asked Questions on the Red Lists and the Red Data Book