Definitions of conservation translocation

This post is just to highlight the fact that I've updated the 'definitions' page on this blog (see top tabs to find the different pages).  Definitions are key to a discipline such as this one, where confusion in terminology generates a host of uncertainties about the motivations, appropriate methods and policy implications for species conservation.  For this reason, the IUCN Task Force charged with revising and expanding the Guidelines for Reintroductions and Other Conservation Translocations spent a great deal of time scrutinising the definitions and testing their applicability under a range of scenarios and case-studies.

The new definitions for conservation translocations include a shift from 'historic range' to 'indigenous range' and the following interventions:

• Population Restoration - including reinforcement and reintroduction
• Conservation Introduction - including assisted colonisation and ecological replacement

The full Guidelines are available in an interim version just now (please email me if you would like this version) but will be freely available on the IUCN Re-introductions Specialist Group website in the final format soon.  There are also plans underway for translation of the Guidelines into several languages and hard-copies to be made available.