From 17 to 22 August, the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar, hosted a training workshop dedicated to assessing amphibian extinction risk according to the IUCN Red List criteria, with the participation of Matthew Moreira, a researcher at CESAM and the Department of Biology of the University of Aveiro. During the workshop, 88 recently described species were assessed as part of an initiative resulting from a collaboration between the IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group-Madagascar and the organisation Miaro Ny Sahona (MISA).
Madagascar is one of the world’s most important regions for amphibian conservation: more than 400 species are currently known, virtually all of them endemic to the island. However, the rate at which new species are being described far exceeds the capacity to formally assess them, meaning that many remain without an assigned conservation status and, consequently, outside the scope of conservation policies and the funding that depends on them.
It was precisely this gap that prompted the workshop, held from 17 to 22 August 2026 at the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar, bringing together 17 Malagasy participants, including students, early-career researchers and herpetologists.
The training was organised around two main areas. The first, methodological in nature, focused on the Red List criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global standard for classifying species’ extinction risk, as well as the associated assessment and review procedures. The second consisted of an introductory course on R, led by Matthew Moreira, focusing on the tools required to reproducibly calculate the spatial parameters required by the IUCN, namely extent of occurrence (EOO) and area of occupancy (AOO), as well as to produce the distribution maps accompanying each assessment. All materials were developed using open-source code and remain available to enable local teams to continue the work independently.
Over the six days of the workshop, the group analysed 88 recently described amphibian species, combining distribution data, ecological information extracted from the literature, and documented threats at each locality, particularly forest loss and degradation. A draft assessment was prepared for each species and will now undergo review before being submitted to the IUCN.
The workshop resulted from a collaboration between Angelica Crottini, Associate Professor at the University of Florence (Italy), Dina Lydie Ramamonjisoa, Project Coordinator at Miaro Ny Sahona (MISA, Madagascar), and Matthew Moreira. Beyond producing assessments, the initiative sought to build the capacity of Malagasy students, researchers and herpetologists to carry out this type of work independently—an essential objective in a country with exceptional biodiversity but still limited technical resources for documenting it.
Original article: UA Notícias, 7 September 2026