Philippines ecosystem workshop

May 2026

This week, Alys Young contributed to a workshop focused on identifying, mapping, and assessing the status of the Philippines' ecosystems. Hosted by the Wildlife Conservation Society and led by the IUCN, the workshop trained participants in the Global Ecosystem Typology, the Global Ecosystems Atlas, and the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems. 

The Red List of Ecosystems is the global standard for assessing ecosystem conservation status. Ecosystem mapping supports RLE assessments by providing information on the spatial extent of ecosystems and changes in their distributions over time. Alys demonstrated the modelling approaches of the Global Ecosystem Atlas to understand potential approaches for a national scale. Along with open datasets and software, the Global Ecosystem Atlas is currently developing reflections and guidance on how to collect ecosystem occurrence points and bring together multiple maps.

The Philippines is one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth. Ecosystem mapping and Red List assessments are important steps forward for not only national decision-making and reporting on international agreements, but also for global biodiversity conservation. We are proud to contribute to such initiatives and look forward to seeing developments from the Philippines.