To somehow protect plants and animals that are threatened with extinction, people invented the Red Book. It catalogs all their known species, and each of them is assigned a specific threat status. Of course, this does not directly save species that are on the verge of extinction, but the Red Book helps to draw attention to existing problems anyway.
In the Soviet Union, its first edition was released in 1978. Later, in 2001, the first Red Book of Russia was published. It was based on the latest Soviet edition, but taking into account all the changes, and its volume was about 900 pages. The Red Book received such a name and such a cover color, because among different nations red is considered the color of danger. On average, the International Red Book is updated every 7-8 years. Since the creation of its first edition, work on updating information on the status of protected species has never stopped. Different countries have different penalties for harming plants and animals included in the Red Book, but in any case it is very severe.
The threat status for plants and animals listed in the Red Book is measured on a scale from 0 (species extinct) to 5 (the threat is reduced, the population is gradually recovering). In the European Union, the pan-European Red Book and its local publications from different countries have legal force. But the pan-European version always prevails over the local ones. There is no Red Book in the USA, but there is its exact analogue – the law on endangered species. The first international edition of the Red Book came out in 1963. Its authors, a large group of scientists, worked on it for about fifteen years. There are laws on the protection of endangered species in different countries, but it is the Red Book that is especially common in the former Soviet republics.
