This month, while the IUCN World Congress 2025 is held in Abu Dhabi, it is a good time to remember the fundamental work that this organization does to protect nature around the world. The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) is the international reference body in conservation, with more than 1,400 members from 140 countries, including governments, NGOs and scientific centers. Its mission is clear: to promote the conservation of nature and the sustainable use of its resources to guarantee a sustainable future for people and the planet.
One of the best-known instruments of the IUCN is the Red List, the Red List of Threatened Species. This tool assesses the risk of extinction of species on a global scale, guiding conservation policies, prioritizing actions and orienting scientific research. Currently, more than 169,000 species worldwide have been assessed, more than 6,000 in Europe and about 5,000 in Spain, including more than 1,000 species in Catalonia.
Species are arranged in categories that reflect their degree of vulnerability: extinct (EX), extinct in the wild (EW), critically endangered (CR), endangered (EN), vulnerable (VU), others categorized as least concern (LC), and even others for which insufficient data are available to know their conservation status (DD), and some that are, for now, not evaluated by this list (NE).
At the Marimurtra Botanical Garden we have representatives of all the categories, except for those species that, unfortunately, are extinct (EX). Some examples are:
- Lysimachia minoricensis is a species extinct in the wild (EW).
- Agave nickelsiae is critically endangered (CR).
- Aeonium gomerense endangered (EN).
- Agave decipiens is vulnerable (VU).
- Phoenix theoprhasti is near threatened (NT).
- Agave attenuata is of least concern (LC).
- We even have species not evaluated (NE) such as Colletia paradoxa.
- Or with insufficient data (DD) such as Nelumbo nucifera.
The IUCN World Congress, held from October 9 to 15, 2025, brings together experts and members from all over the world to debate transformative actions in conservation, innovation, financing, and integration of nature in global policies. At the same time, at the Marimurtra Botanical Garden we also play an active role: conserving species in living collections, researching to provide scientific knowledge and promoting dissemination, helping to reduce the Plant Awareness Disparity (PAD), that is, the tendency not to notice the plants around us. Each species we know and protect is one more step to ensure the survival of biodiversity.
In short, while decisions are being made in the world that will mark the future of nature, at the Marimurtra Botanical Garden we have the opportunity to act locally: conserving, observing and disseminating the plant world. These plants remind us that biodiversity is not just an abstract concept: it is alive, fragile and wonderful, and it depends on us to recognize it and take care of it every day.
