Consultations

In this section:

Closed

New listing of threatened status of New Zealand lichens

Contact:

Rod Hitchmough
Scientific Officer (Species)
Terrestrial Conservation Unit
Email: threatstatus@doc.govt.nz

Consultation closed

Call for submissions about the conservation status of NZ lichen species closed on 30 September 2009. This will inform a new listing of lichens in the NZ Threat Classification System. Lichens have not previously been listed using this system.

Background information

In 2002, the Department of Conservation developed a new system for classifying organisms according to their risk of extinction (Molloy et al. 2002).

This system allows the classification of conservation status/risk of extinction of all organisms known to occur in a wild state in New Zealand. Endemics, non-endemic natives, migrants, vagrants, and introduced and naturalised species are all included, as are taxa which have not been formally described.

This is not a priority-setting system in the way that the listing of Molloy & Davis (1992, 1994) was, so does not include information on taxonomic distinctiveness, or on human values.

It is a resource for priority setting, among other functions, rather than a priority list in itself. Two lists of threatened taxa assessed by these criteria have been published (Hitchmough 2002, Hitchmough et al. 2007).

During the course of these listings, opportunities for improvements to the system itself were identified, and as a result a new manual with changed categories and criteria and more explicit procedures has been published (Townsend et al. 2008).

We wish to make these lists as comprehensive as possible, and we now wish to gather data to begin the classification of lichens under the new criteria. We would be very grateful for any submissions providing information lichen species, subspecies, etc. that you consider to be threatened.

An expert panel will meet to decide the classification of New Zealand lichens, on the basis of information supplied.