Red Lists of the Animals, Plants and Fungi of Germany

Overall coordination and technical support

Red Lists document the endangerment of native species on a scientific basis and in condensed form. They are data sources for legislative measures, argumentation aids for environmentally relevant planning and show the urgent need for action in species protection. The Red List Centre is operated by the DLR Projektträger (DLR-PT).

The Red Lists of Germany's animals, plants and fungi are published by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and compiled by about 550 experts. A further 20,000 or so people provide observation data for this purpose. This work is mainly done on a voluntary basis. In 2014, the participating experts issued a memorandum to politicians and the public calling for better support for their work.

Overall coordination of the Red Lists and expert monitoring

In December 2018, the Red List Centre (RLZ) was set up to ensure that the Red Lists are compiled in the long term and to provide all those involved with the best possible support. It acts on behalf of the BfN and is funded by the Federal Environment Ministry with 3.1 million euros annually.

The Red List Centre is responsible for the overall coordination, planning and editing of the nationwide Red Lists, thus reducing the BfN’s workload. It provides organisational and financial support to authors in the preparation of draft lists and supports the consistently high quality of the Red Lists through intensive technical supervision. It is in direct contact with around 550 Red List authors and contributes to networking with other experts. It also supports the promotion of young scientists in a number of ways. Together with the BfN, the Red List Centre promotes greater awareness of the Red Lists among politicians, nature conservation and planning authorities and the interested public.

Red Lists in a new format, data portals, IT tools, species search engine

The first list to be published under the expert supervision of the Red List Centre was the updated Red List of Mammals in October 2020. The Red Lists of Amphibians and Reptiles followed shortly afterwards. DLR-PT has developed a new format for these lists which will apply to all Red Lists in future. In preparation for coming Red Lists, authors were recruited, coordination contracts were concluded, and preparatory work was financed. As a basis for drawing up Red Lists, DLR-PT has developed data portals for recording observation data and IT tools for hazard analysis. It has set up a website that makes Red List data available for download and has developed a species search engine that for the first time makes data on the endangerment situation quickly and digitally available.