The 4^th International Southeast Asia Bat Conference was held August 6-9, 2018 at Bacolod City, Negros, Philippines, with over 200 bat scientists, NGO’s, and students from the region. The conference aimed to gather scientists, and practitioners working on various facets of bat research to present and update new findings from the region and neighboring territories to effectively conserve Southeast Asia’s rich bat biodiversity. 

Two members of the Landscape Ecology Group of the Centre for Integrative Conservation, XTBG attended the conference and showcased the group’s current global scale projects. Principal Investigator Associate Professor Alice C. Hughes, presented her work ‘Developing Priorities for the Bat Conservation in the Old World Tropics’, which discusses the lab’s effort to map global priorities for conservation, ecosystem services provisions, and accurate taxonomy and systematics. While, Krizler C. Tanalgo, a PhD student from the group presented his work ‘Bat of the Philippine Islands: a review of research directions and relevance to national-level priorities and targets’ where he discussed the strengths and needs on Philippine bat biodiversity including threats and vulnerabilities, and approaches to meet the targets in the country. 

Apart from presenting their work, LEG members also discussed future collaborative work in the region with scientists and policy-makers in the Philippines for the adaption of research outputs to policy and implementation, for example, the Bat Cave Vulnerability Index, a holistic tool developed by the group to assess cave bats for conservation will be potentially adapted for national cave prioritisation policy in the Philippines. 

The conference concluded with regional hunting workshop that aims to assess the intensity and drivers of flying fox hunting and trade in the region and the announcement of next year’s International Bat Research Conference that will be held in Phuket, Thailand in August 2019. The 4^th International Southeast Asian Bat Conference was organised by the Philippine Biodiversity Conservation Foundation Inc., and the Southeast Asian Bat Conservation and Research Unit.