The WWF assigns a conservation status to each ecoregion in the Global 200: critical or endangered; vulnerable; and relatively stable or intact.
The goal of this classification system is to ensure that the full range of ecosystems will be represented in regional conservation and development strategies.
On the other hand, the WWF determined that a more comprehensive strategy for conserving global biodiversity should also consider the other half of species, as well as the ecosystems that support them.
Historically, zoologists and botanists have developed various classification systems that take into account the world's plant and animal communities.
WWF say ecoregions could be considered as conservation units at regional scale because they meet similar biological communities.
Selection of the Global 200 relied on extensive studies of 19 terrestrial, freshwater, and marine major habitat types.
Global 200 ecoregion list is most helpful to conservation efforts at a regional scale: local deforestation, destruction of swamp habitats, degradation of soils, etc.