India holds 2603 known tree species, 650 of which are endemic, and 469 of which have already been assessed as threatened (1, 2). In October 2025, India’s Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change launched the National Red List Assessment, a 5-year, nearly US$10 million effort to evaluate roughly 11,000 species, including 7000 plants, against International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List criteria (3). However, identifying risk is not the same as acting on it. India should augment its substantial assessment investment with a conservation plan for the species found to be vulnerable.