Developing and ranking a national red list of Saudi Arabian plants through meta-analysis

Methods aimed at ranking species considered important for conservation at the national level are usually applied to countries with a long history of botanical surveys and comprehensive spatial coverage. Here we propose a simple, objective and transferable method for areas for which botanical knowledge is still highly sporadic, drawing heavily on freely available international open data sources to complement national data.Applying the method to Saudi Arabia, a total of 266 taxa were selected to make up its National Red List (NRL) of plants. Taxa were ranked in order of importance on the basis of 12 criteria according to threat, range, taxonomic rarity and conservation importance.Evaluating the ten highest scoring plants reveals that not all enjoy in situ protection or are the focus of detailed management plans, and there are still disagreements relating to species taxonomy. Nevertheless, the method proposed in this paper provides a vital starting point for species-based conservation in areas of low data coverage and availability.