In the framework of the POCTEFEX-Transhabitat project, two workshops have been organized by the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation (IUCN-Med) and its partners to progress in the establishment of the Moroccan Red List of Ecosystems. These days of intensive work aimed to set the methodological basis to evaluate and classify threatened ecosystems in Morocco.

The first workshop took place in Malaga on the 17th and 18th of January, 2013. A dozen of scientific experts from Morocco and Spain gathered together, along with members of IUCN-Med and of the Moroccan High Commission for Water, Forestry and Desertification Control. They adopted an agenda setting the next steps of the project. They also established a work methodology and outlined the sources of information they could use.

The second meeting was held in Tangier, from the 14th to the 17th of April. The experts reviewed the roadmap to apply the criteria of the IUCN Red List of ecosystems and agreed on the basis of a hierarchical classification model for Moroccan ecosystems. The workshop was completed by the visit of terrestrial ecosystems located in the Northern region of Morocco, of interest in the framework of the POCTEFEX-Alboran project.

The experts are expected to present their first results by the end of the year. Their work should enable to identify if an ecosystem is vulnerable, endangered or threatened in any way, based on a set of internationally recognized criteria for risk assessment. The Red List of Ecosystems can help adopt concrete conservation measures, including land settlement and choice of investment priorities.