Release of the 2000 Red List is a major landmark for IUCN. It is the first time that listings of animals and plants have been combined and the first time that the Red List has been produced on CD-ROM. The 2000 Red List combines new assessmentsincluding all bird species, many antelope and bat species, most primates and sharks, all Asian freshwater turtles, more molluscs, and many otherswith those from previous publications. The combination of animals and plants into a single list containing assessments of more than 18,000 taxa (11,000 of which are threatened species) and the move towards improved documentation of each species on the list means that a hard-copy version of the Red List would run to several volumes. This, combined with the fact that the Red List will be updated annually, led to the decision to release the Red List in electronic format, via the World Wide Web and as a CD-ROM.