Climate change and biodiversity in the ASEAN region

The ASEAN Region is one of the most diverse regions in the world culturally, economically and biologically. In terms of biological richness and diversity it is one of the 'wealthiest'. Having only about 3 percent of the global land surface, it however houses more than 20 percent of the rich biological resources known to human societies. The region has three of the 17 mega-diverse countries worldwide, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, which rank in terms of endemism as 2nd, 8th, and 15th, respectively. While the Region owns this distinction, this very rich biodiversity is also under serious threat. Seven of the world's biodiversity 'hotspots' are in the region. The threat to ASEAN biodiversity is largely attributed to pressures mainly from anthropological activities: the impacts of changing lifestyles brought about by increasing economic prosperity and that one exerted by still a large population whose livelihoods are still reliant on the natural resources. The recent concern over the critical implications of climate change to biodiversity has now gained wider attention particularly among the governments in the region. The 2007 IPCC report issued established with greater certainty that climate change will have serious implication in the way of life of people, not unless society in general already starts to consider adaptation and mitigation measures in anticipation of such a likely event. While the current discussions are in the right directions, the implications of climate change to biodiversity is least understood much in the same manner that the conservation of biodiversity resources can be most practical way of adapting and mitigating the serious impacts of climate variability. What is therefore needed is for governments to interface with biodiversity conservation as a way of significantly reducing the contributory factors that cause climate change. This essentially involves the development and promotion of policies that highlight the cross-linkage of climatic change and biodiversity protection such as the initiatives on avoided deforestation, reduction on land use changes, the expansion of natural parks particularly the ASEAN Heritage Parks, and the incorporation in the carbon market of bioidiversity conservation.