(1) Regional lists of species will be agreed upon by all relevant parties. Draft lists to get discussions started will be sent to Regional Coordinators by Paul Williams.
(2) The Regional Coordinators will liaise with regional Members to agree upon who can contribute information for the assessment of each species on their regional list.
(3) Preliminary assessments for each species will be reached within each regional group. This will be the responsibility of the Regional Coordinators.
- Members are encouraged to contribute all available published and unpublished information about bumblebee distribution and status.
- The idea is to use only currently available information at this stage, NOT to initiate new field work. The assessment process for all species must not be stalled by lack of information for any particular species. Some species may need to be judged to be insufficiently known (Data Deficient) for a reliable assessment to be made as per IUCN criteria.
- The IUCN assessment process permits consideration of a broad range of information, some kinds of which are unlikely to be available for most bumblebee species. At the very least, however, broad-scale distribution data exist for all species and can be used in the assessment process, so in principle some coverage of almost all species should be possible. Members are especially encouraged to digitise these data wherever practical so that the project can compile a database to make its data and process available and accountable.
(4) Preliminary regional assessments of each species will be brought together in an open discussion in order to compile unified assessments of each species globally. Regional Coordinators will be expected to liaise amongst themselves to coordinate the assessment of species occurring in more than one region. If necessary we should be able to help with this inter-regional coordination. The BBSG aims to hold a meeting of all Regional Coordinators in 2013 to faciliate this process.
(5) It is an essential principle that all contributing Members will be acknowledged for their contributions (which therefore need to be recorded within regional groups), that all information will be open access to the general public, and that contributors will be required to reference these data sources fully.
(6) Once drafts are finalised, all species assessments will be submitted to the BBSG Red List Authority Focal Point, who will arrange for two experts to review each assessment, following IUCN procedure. The Red List Authority Focal Point is the person responsible for ensuring that each red list assessment is reviewed by at least two people who have not contributed to the assessment.
(7) Final assessments for each bumblebee species will be posted on the IUCN Red List website and compiled into a single publication. All contributing members will be acknowledged for their contributions.
Please visit the Resources page for specific guidance and tutorials on using the IUCN Categories and Criteria to evaluate the conservation status of bumblebees.