Protecting biodiversity in the ASEAN region

Context

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region is home to around 20 per cent of the world’s flora and fauna species, 35 per cent of its mangrove forests and 28 per cent of its coral reefs. More than 600 million people depend directly or indirectly on the conservation of these natural resources for their food, health and livelihood.

However, the region’s biodiversity and associated services remain under massive pressure. The 10 member states of ASEAN (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam) have recognised the need to intensify regional approaches in the field of biodiversity conservation.

In response, they have created the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), an intergovernmental organisation tasked with facilitating cooperation and coordination among the member states, promoting the sustainable use of biological diversity, and ensuring fair access and benefit sharing.

Objective

The ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity is better able to protect biodiversity in the region and successfully implements a new organisational strategy.

Approach

The project encompasses four areas of action:

• It strengthens ACB’s organisational structures, for example by updating the organisational strategy, introducing a results-based control system and building ACB’s capacities.
• It supports ACB in developing guidelines for the ASEAN Heritage Parks programme, with a view to standardising, monitoring and evaluating their processes.
• It supports ACB in contributing to international negotiations on biodiversity in line with its role.
• It mainstreams biodiversity conservation approaches in three sectors (fisheries and aquaculture, infrastructure and tourism).

Last update: September 2023