The changing conservation status of birds and other species is to be used to track progress towards the UN's Millennium Development Goals.
The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which range from halving extreme poverty to ensuring environmental sustainability, are targets for the year 2015 agreed by all the world's governments and development institutions.
The Red List Index, which was initially designed and tested by BirdLife International using data on all bird species from 1988-2004, is to be the basis of a new MDG “indicator”.  To be known as the Proportion of Species Threatened with Extinction, it will be used alongside other MDG indicators, such as the proportion of population with an income below $1 per day, the rates of infant and maternal mortality, the proportion of children in primary education, and the prevalence of diseases such as malaria. The new indicator is the only species-based indicator in the UN set.
The Red List Index is based on the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List, which uses quantitative criteria based on population size, rate of decline, and area of distribution to assign species to categories of relative extinction risk, such as Vulnerable, Endangered and Critically Endangered. The index is based on the proportion of species in each category on the Red List, and changes in this proportion over time resulting from genuine improvement or deterioration in the status of individual species.
Birds remain the best-known class of organisms worldwide, and have the longest history of comprehensive assessment for the IUCN Red List. Birds are useful indicators for other biodiversity, and the bird Red List Index will represent the best available species-based biodiversity indicator in many developing countries for years to come. BirdLife's unique partnership of national NGOs plays a key role in collecting and providing the on-the-ground data that are used in global Red List assessments.
"I am delighted that the UN has recognised the value of species in measuring progress towards achieving environmental sustainability,” said Dr Mike Rands, BirdLife’s Chief Executive. “ The likely adoption of 'The Proportion of Species Threatened with Extinction' as one of around 50 global indicators to assess progress in achieving the MDGs highlights the issue of extinction, the enormous value of species data and the importance of biodiversity to sustaining livelihoods.”
“Yet again it's really good to see birds and BirdLife playing such a leading and catalytic role in this process."
Although the new indicator is likely to be incorporated into an annexe to the Millennium Development Goals report for 2007, it will not be formally adopted into the MDG framework until 2008.