The global recession, the Middle East crisis, the previous Melamine scare and now the salmonella issue have resonated deeply in the consciousness of people. But buried under these infamous issues is a less popular crisis with far greater implications than anyone can imagine—biodiversity loss. The Asean Center for Biodiversity (ACB), an intergovernmental regional center of excellence that facilitates coordination among the members of the Asean and with relevant national governments, regional and international organizations, has sounded the alarm bells for biodiversity loss. According to ACB, we are losing plants, animals and other species at unprecedented rates due to deforestation, large-scale mining, massive wildlife hunting and other irresponsible human activities. This poses a significant threat to our food security, health, livelihood, and the world’s overall capacity to provide for our needs and those of future generations.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment published in 2005 reported that humans have increased extinction levels dramatically over the past decades at 100 to 1,000 times the normal background rate. In Southeast Asia alone, 1,312 out of 64,800 species are endangered. The Food and Agriculture Organization reported that out of more than 10,000 different plant species used for food by humans over the millennia, barely 150 species remain under cultivation. Of these, only 12 species provide 80 percent of the world’s food needs and only four—rice, wheat, maize and potatoes—provide more than half of the energy requirements of humans.

Rod Fuentes, ACB executive director, says the remaining 9,850 other species, if they have not been lost already, are vulnerable. The ongoing food crisis, he explained, is testament to decades of misguided energy policies, extensive use of unsustainable agricultural practices, and wanton destruction of nature and damage to ecological services.

Health is another arena where the natural benefits of a healthy biodiversity are most obvious. The natural world holds the key to many medicinal resources and pharmaceutical drugs. If the world continues to lose around 13 million hectares of its forest cover every year, it would be difficult to develop better kinds of medicine to cure both existing and emerging illnesses. About 80 percent of the world’s known biodiversity, many of which have medicinal value, could be found in forests.

According to the Center, apart from providing people with food and medicine, nature also offers a wide range of ecosystem services such as contribution to climate stability, maintenance of ecosystems, soil formation and protection, and pollution breakdown and absorption. Biodiversity is also a source of livelihood to millions of people as the economy of many communities is driven by the use of species in industries such as biotechnology, forestry, agriculture and fisheries. Moreover, biodiversity provides social benefits including recreation and tourism, as well as cultural and aesthetic values.

Fuentes says forgetting the biodiversity crisis is akin to cutting our lifeline to the world’s natural treasures and reminds everyone that extinction is forever. With every species lost, the natural ecosystems we call home become biologically poorer.

With funding support from the European Union, the project facilitated collaboration among Asean member states for biodiversity-related initiatives. It is the first regional initiative to save the Asean’s rich but highly threatened biodiversity. All Asean members are signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the first global agreement to cover the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. By signing the convention, they committed to reducing biodiversity loss by 2010—the International Year of Biodiversity.

With its slogan “Conserving Biodiversity, Saving Humanity,” ACB performs its mandate through five components: program development and policy coordination, human and institutional capacity development, biodiversity information management, public and leadership awareness of biodiversity values; and sustainable financing mechanism.

To further bolster its efforts, ACB also forms alliances with key stakeholders in the regional and global levels. There is an urgent need to involve all sectors to save the region’s endangered biodiversity. The issue may not be as hot as politics or the global financial crisis, but massive biodiversity loss will have a huge impact on the lives of hundreds of millions if left unsolved. ACB is optimistic that biodiversity faces a bright future if all sectors would work together to conserve it.