In the 17th Focal Points Meeting of Data and Information Networking Regional Activity Centre of the Northwest Pacific Action Plan held in Dalian, China, on 22–23 August 2019, marine scientists and government administrators agreed to survey the species assigned to the category of endangered in the Northwest Pacific region.
In 2014 and 2015, scientists confirmed that 69 species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list are present in the Northwest Pacific region. They expanded the research to 143 species in 2016 and 2017. The study finds that most of the surveyed endangered species in the region are animals, and only two are plants. Among animal species, 61 Chordata (animals with a backbone), and six invertebrates are in the endangered species category. Among them, two species were listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, namely the spoon-billed sandpiper and the sea-run Taimen. Among the remaining 67 species, 44 were ranked as vulnerable and 23 as endangered.
In 2018 and 2019, national experts from China, Korea, and Russia studied a total of 1,196 species listed on the Red List of Japan. Scientists and government representatives met in Dalian, China, on 22–23 August 2019 at the 17th Focal Points Meeting of the Data and Information Networking Regional Activity Centre and agreed to survey further the endangered species of the NOWPAP region. To understand the situation with endangered species better, to promote more extensive information sharing, and to directly contribute to the strengthening of the biodiversity conservation efforts in the region, participants of the Dalian meeting agreed to advance the study on endangered species in the next eight years. Meeting participants emphasized that the existing knowledge gaps and inconsistency of information available in the countries could hamper the development of the Marine Species Red List. In 2020–2021, as agreed by at the meeting, China will lead the project. The Species Red List of China, published by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the List of National Key Protected Wildlife in China, published by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, will also contribute to the Marine Species Red List.
"We hope the study will help to verify whether a species endangered in one country is endangered in other countries as well. Some years ago, China presented a few crested ibis species, an endangered bird species, to Japan. Japan has successfully cultivated more than a hundred of crested ibises and released them into the wild. We hope that member states can exchange endangered marine species for conservation in the future," said Mr. Yoshihisa Shirayama, the lead expert of the project from Japan.
"This study will promote our work on the Red List of marine species in China, as we do not have this kind of list yet, with the need to include more information on species," said Mr. Hongjun Li, a Chinese expert from the National Marine Environmental Monitoring Centre.
Implementation of NOWPAP contributes to the Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities (GPA) in the Northwest Pacific region.