National Red List Assessment Workshop on Endemic Plants of Bhutan

A five-day National Red List Assessment Workshop on endemic plants of Bhutan was held at Paro. The workshop which began on 23^rd November, 2015 was organized by the National Biodiversity Center Serbithang, Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, in collaboration with IUCN and Biodiversity Network Japan. Some 18 participants representing the College of Natural Resource, Department of Forests and Park Services, Mangdechu Hydro Power Authority, Tangsibji Hydro Energy and National Biodiversity Center participated in the Red Listing Assessment Process with experts/facilitators from IUCN Red List Unit funded through the Toyota Environment Activities Grant Program, Japan.

The workshop was organized with the following objectives:

• To review the information obtained through herbarium consultations, field surveys, endemic plant diversity database, expert consultations and literature reviews since January 2014 to November 2015.
• To enter all the information into the IUCN global online database, the Species Information System.
• To develop detailed plans for publishing the National Red List of Bhutan’s Endemic Plants

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is widely recognized as the most comprehensive, objective global approach for evaluating the conservation status of plant and animal species.  It plays an increasingly prominent role in guiding conservation activities of governments, NGOs and scientific institutions. The goal of IUCN Red List is to provide information and analyses on the status, trends and threats to species in order to inform and catalyse actions for biodiversity conservation.

Through this workshop, 144 species of endemic plants of Bhutan was assessed to asigned global conservation status. And the red list publication will be made available in November 2016.

This National Red Listing of Bhutan’s endemic plants was the first initiative in the country coordinated by the National Biodiversity Center. However, the Department of Forest and Park Services, as the National Coordinator for the Bhutan Red List Partnership in the country will continue the process of Red Listing of prioritized flora and fauna of Bhutan.