These references of UICN should be useful to understand conservation status.

I agree with Jose with references of UICN

Thanks, Jose and Lorena!

I agree, the IUCN has a good amount of articles related to each species there.

I would suggest, first of all, learn as much as you can from your species biology. Once you know it better you can start looking at which things threaten it the most, trying to understand what really matters for this species, try being in your "species shoes". Try to figure out at what scale will conservation actions be relevant  and which actions are more prone to be undertaken effectively, etc.

For instance, you may find that your species has a distribution of X, but along all the distribution, it only inhabits rocky formations of certain characteristics thus, you wouldn`t try to preserve everything, maybe only those formations in that species distribution...its a lot more complex, you have to keep in mind a lot of things, biological, social, economical, etc.

Wish we could have a coffee and discuss the matter, its more complex than it seems.

 Thanks, Alberto

You can go through this book.

In addition to the answers offered so far, search for and try this:  A framework for evaluating the effectiveness of conservation attention at the species level.

Harriet Washington, Jonathan Baillie, Carly Waterman, E.J. Milner-Gulland 

Thanks, Abhijit and Durojaye for your responses!

Further to Alberto's comment: ensure that you're considering both "bottom-up" and "top-down" regulators of a species' population. Food and habitat availability plus predators or other sources of mortality/limits on survival. 

Good luck!

And please give us an update if you find something great that hasn't already been mentioned. 

You can check the Alliance for Zero Extinction 

http://www.biodiversitya-z.org/content/alliance-for-zero-extinction-sites-aze

And we recently published a paper on species with imminent threat of extinction, assessing opportunities for conserving species based not only on biology but costs, political factors, and probability of the area to be Urbanised. 

Hope it helps

Article Opportunities and costs for preventing vertebrate extinctions

Thanks Nicole for your suggestion, I will certainly keep that in mind!

Thanks Dalia, for the URL and for your paper!

Hi,

Perhaps you could have a look at our two papers.

Best wishes,

Greg

The number of species and literature on their conservation strategies is 'endless'. Maybe you shuold restrict your inquiry on some topics or species. 

Gregor, thanks for the papers!

Francesco, that is true, but I'm looking for a very general discussion of the issue, one that is applicable across taxa.

I would suggest the IUCN guidelines for red list criteria

Thanks, Roberto, I am indeed looking at the red list criteria.

Understand. Then I agree on the IUCN guidelines for red list criteria to start with.

Yours is a very broad question, and I think most of what you are looking for features in a good conservation biology book. If you wish to read something looking at species conservation from a more practical perspective, the following textbook could be of interest (not very recent but still valid):

Gibbs et al. (2008).Problem-Solving in Conservation Biology and Wildlife Management. Wiley.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/9781444319576

I hope this helps, all best

Dear Danilo,

Thanks for suggesting the textbook, will try to get a copy.

Best,

Dev

Give Mike Alexander: A guide to management planning for nature conservation a read

Thanks, Daniel, will take a look!