ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the regulatory frameworks for listing threatened species through the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. It examines several aspects of the nonhuman list that are highly applicable in the context of the human list. The chapter first introduces the list in general, and the Red List in particular, and then examines the biopolitical aspects of the Red List. While much recent biopolitical work emphasizes thanatopolitics or necropolitics, the chapter focuses an affirmative biopolitics. Red List Unit Programme Officer Rebecca Miller focuses on the broad functionality of lists as she writes: "The principle aim of a threatened species assessment is to estimate a species' risk of extinction in a comparable, repeatable, transparent, and objective manner". Finally, the chapter explores the Red List's contagious, or seductive, qualities as part of the threatened species list's prominent biopolitical features, it illuminates the global, regulatory, scientific, and seductive dimensions of the list.
