The world's top conservation body kicked off its world congress Thursday in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi, where it will unveil its updated "red list" of threatened species a day later.

Hundreds of participants were meeting at the venue where the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), whose decisions help set the global agenda on environmental protection, will on Friday publish its list ranking plant and animal species from "least concern" to "extinct".

The congress, held every four years, sheds light on the dire state of the world's biodiversity. An increasing number of animals suffer from the destruction of their natural habitat, climate change, and water, air and soil pollution.

According to the United Nations's expert scientific panel on biodiversity (IPBES), biodive

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