Threatened ecosystems of Myanmar: An IUCN Red List of Ecosystems Assessment. Version 1

Abstract

Coordinating Organisations Wildlife Conservation SocietyThe Wildlife Conservation Society is a globally distributed science-based conservation organization, producing and disseminating the information and knowledge necessary to inform and improve conservation and management action in wild places. With field conservation operations in nearly 60 nations and all of the world's oceans, WCS has supported governments and communities in the creation or expansion of 245 protected areas. WCS employs more than 170 PhD and DVM scientists and have trained and funded generations of field and zoo colleagues, many of whom are now leaders in conservation science, wildlife veterinary medicine, and curatorial research around the world.

Myanmar's terrestrial ecosystems: Status, threats and conservation opportunities

“…Experts were asked to review the candidate list of ecosystem types, identify any gaps and, where possible, describe the spatial distribution of each ecosystem type using the state jurisdictions as a template. Following the workshops, we traversed more than 3,800 kilometres of Myanmar to investigate the distribution of ecosystem types and collect descriptive information about their composition, structural features and environmental relationships (Murray et al 2020b). During the field traverses we also collected spatially explicit records of ecosystem occurrences for use as training data for the ecosystem mapping component of the assessment (Murray et al 2020a).…”

“…For these, we compiled comprehensive ecosystem descriptions from literature reviews and our field data to summarise the characteristic abiotic and biotic elements, key ecosystem processes, distribution and proximate threats for each ecosystem. The descriptions were reviewed and, where appropriate, amended by experts, and developed as a guide to the ecosystems of Myanmar (Murray et al 2020b).…”

“…As the data were available for timeframes varying from 18 to 27 years, we extrapolated area change estimates to the 50-year time frames using the exponential decline function from the R package redlistr (Lee et al 2019). Our satellite analyses of ecosystem distributions provided the basis for estimating range size (Criterion B) and for delineating spatial boundaries for analysing ecosystem degradation (Murray et al 2020a;Murray et al 2020b). Owing to uncertainty in the distribution of some ecosystems, only 57 (89.1%) of Myanmar's ecosystem types could be included in mapping analyses.…”

“…We linearly extrapolated these estimates to 2050 using the redlistr (Lee et al 2019), assuming constant ongoing rates of exponential change to enable an assessment of mangrove degradation over a 50-year frame (Criterion D2b). Given that elements of the ecosystem remain where mangroves were mapped as degraded, we assumed the relative severity of the decline in biotic function was greater than 50% but less than 80% (Murray et al 2020b). To estimate plausible bounds of the assessment outcome and reflect uncertainty in collapse thresholds (Bland et al 2018), we conducted a sensitivity analysis by repeating the analysis with a relative severity of the decline assumed as >80% (Bland et al 2017;Bland et al 2018).…”

“…The remainder were assessed as threatened due to the impacts of proximate and distal threats that have or are expected to significantly influence their abiotic or biotic function (Criteria C and D). These threats include slash and burn agriculture, high-value timber extraction, cutting for fuelwood, defaunation and climate warming (Murray et al 2020b). Although some threats have been operating for decades (e.g.…”