The Core Development Team identified standardized threat categories and individual threats to landscape features and wildlife by modifying previously existing threat classifications for terrestrial and aquatic systems (Richter et al. 1997a, Salafsky et al. 2003). The same categories were used for both terrestrial and aquatic features, but the threats within these categories reflect the differences between these systems.
Threats to one species or landscape feature are sometimes the result of management actions intended to aid another. The intent of this action plan is not to resolve these conflicts, but to recognize they exist and to explore a process for resolving them.