# A Living IUCN Red List of the World's Species

*2025-09-01 — idea*


Status: Ongoing
Level: PhD
Year: 2025
Project: Enki, a Dashboard of Life on Earth
Supervisors: Anil Madhavapeddy
Students: Shane Weisz


The IUCN [Red List of Threatened Species](https://www.iucnredlist.org/) is one
of the world's most important conservation resources–often referred to as a
[Barometer of Life](https://www.iucnredlist.org/about/barometer-of-life).  It
provides a standardised, evidence-based assessment framework for grouping
species into extinction risk categories (from [Least Concern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least-concern_species) to [Critically
Endangered](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critically_endangered) using
quantitative criteria.

The Red List is thus a critical indicator of the health
of the world’s biodiversity, and guides policy and conservation action
worldwide. However, Red List coverage is constrained by funding and
availability of trained assessors. This results in significant data gaps (for
example, fewer than 2% of invertebrates have been assessed), and a long tail of
outdated assessments (over 25% are at least 10 years old).

This project is leading research into how agentic AI could support the Red List workflow.
Initial results show that AI coding agents can reliably pass the official Red List assessor training exam
and, crucially, explain their answers with citations to official guidelines.

We're also leveraging agentic coding to rapidly develop and maintain an
interactive real-time "evidence-base" [dashboard](https://red.cst.cam.ac.uk) for the Red List,
integrating live citizen science observations with relevant scientific
literature.

Ultimately, the aim is to see whether AI-assisted assessments can
improve both assessment speed and quality, so that we can identify and protect
threatened species faster.

## EEG Seminar (Feb 26)

<div class="video-center"><iframe title="" width="100%" height="315px" src="https://watch.eeg.cl.cam.ac.uk/videos/embed/bd8063d9-0572-4d12-ba0e-8c2ac2614a1f" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-forms"></iframe></div>

## Related

- [Open MPhil/Part II student projects for 2026-2027](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/student-projects-2026) (note, 2026-09-09)
  A refreshed set of Part II and MPhil projects, split between environmental science problems that need computer science, and more conventional systems and programming languages topics.
- [Can agentic LLMs use local field guides to improve identification of rare species?](https://anil.recoil.org/ideas/agentic-field-guides) (idea, 2026-08-01)
  Available · Part II
- [The Royal Society Environmental Prize lecture on feeding the world without costing the earth](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/ab-rs-env-medal) (note, 2026-06-16)
  Notes from Andrew Balmford's Royal Society Environment Medal lecture, on why shifting diets and cutting food waste are necessary but not sufficient, and why sustainable high-yield farming tied to land sparing is the key to slowing the extinction crisis.
- [.plan-26-10: Streaming TESSERA working, biodiversity action papers, and FPL takes off](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w10) (note, 2026-03-08)
  TESSERA streaming in the browser, planetary programming at WG2.8, biodiversity action papers, FP Launchpad opens, and Docker CACM buzz
- [Connecting the dots for biodiversity action from the NAS/Royal Society Forum](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/nas-rs-biodiversity-papers) (note, 2026-03-07)
  Summary of the Nine Recommendations and Biodiversity Monitoring Standards Framework papers from the NAS/Royal Society US-UK Forum in summer 2025, and how they connect to my work on collective knowledge systems, TESSERA, and evidence synthesis.
- [.plan-26-08: At AI summit, Shriram's PL opinions, Zarr hacking](https://anil.recoil.org/notes/2026w8) (note, 2026-02-22)
  TESSERA paper accepted at CVPR 2026, went to the AI Impact Summit, OCaml Zarr hacking, Shriram's talk on human factors of formal methods, and discussions on teaching OxCaml to agents.
- [Can Agentic AI Accelerate IUCN Red List Assessments?](https://anil.recoil.org/videos/bd8063d9-0572-4d12-ba0e-8c2ac2614a1f) (video, 2026-02-13)
  The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is one of the world's most important conservation resources–often referred to as a "Barometer of Life". It provides a standardised, evidence-based assessment framework for grouping species. Watch Shane Weisz discuss how his working on agentic AI can build an awesome dashboard to bring data to assessor's fingertips.
- [Enki, a Dashboard of Life on Earth](https://anil.recoil.org/projects/enki) (project, 2026-01-01)

---
Canonical: https://anil.recoil.org/ideas/living-iucn-redlist
Type: idea
License: CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>
Tags: conservation, biodiversity, iucn, spatial