Biodiversity Conservation

• The ASEAN region is one of the most biodiverse in the world on land, in freshwater and in the
ocean.
• Drivers that underlie pressures on biodiversity in AMS include economic incentives that promote
consumption and, hence, land-use change. These drivers are challenges to achieving SDGs
14 and 15 on conserving marine and terrestrial biodiversity, the proposed post-2020 global
biodiversity framework, and other international and national biodiversity goals.
• As in most parts of the world, the main pressures believed to be responsible for biodiversity
loss in ASEAN are habitat loss, over-exploitation, climate change, invasive alien species, and
pollution.
• ASEAN has 5,776 species known to be threatened and a further 29 have already gone extinct
or are extinct in the wild (IUCN 2022). Agriculture and urbanization have replaced or altered
about half of the region’s ecosystems.
• ASEAN has achieved some progress towards safeguarding essential ecosystems and
ecosystem services but, in general, progress toward international targets to conserve
biodiversity has been insufficient.
• Regional and international transboundary agreements may help to conserve ASEAN’s nature
but there is also a role for regulatory instruments at the national level, such as additional
protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). ASEAN
Heritage Parks have a key role to play in this regard.
• Continued increases in resource-use efficiency will reduce pressure on ecosystems, especially
from agriculture.
• Natural capital should be valued in a way similar to mineral resources or agricultural produce.
Economic incentives, such as payment for ecosystem services (PES) and development of
ecotourism, can help to accomplish this.
• Nature-based solutions (NbS) to developmental challenges should be encouraged, which may
benefit from enhanced participation by indigenous peoples and local communities in landscape
management.