During the last 30 years published books and red lists have been used to draw attention about threatened species at the global, regional and national levels. From the 1980’s Colombia has elaborated books and red lists of species including two assessments for freshwater fish in 2002 and 2012. The first assessment proposed a series of conservation measurements to increase knowledge and to improve species’ conditions. Of the 45 species listed in 2002, 23 remain the same category of threat or evaluation, three species increase in the threat category and 19 species decrease their category. Here we analyze the impact and development of those proposals and the evolution of the conservation status of freshwater fish in Colombia. We evaluate the change of threatened species categories and calculate the Red List Index (RLI) for the group.