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Why
was LKP formed?Indonesia has the world’s highest level of biodiversity and home to a great number of the earth’s fauna and flora. These include about 1,531 birds (15.4% of the world’s birds), 1,400 freshwater fishes (14% of the world’s fishes), 29,375 plants (10.9% of the world’s plants), 457 mammals (9.9% of the world’s mammals), and 799 reptiles and amphibians (6.5% of the world’s reptiles and amphibians). A significant number of these constitute as endemic and/or globally endangered species.
With an area of 980 million ha – comprising 790 million ha (81%) of seas and 190 million ha (19%) of lands with over 17,000 large and small islands – Indonesia remains as the largest country in Southeast Asia. It has 105 million ha of tropical forests covering 58% of its land, and over 3 million ha of mangroves that constitute nearly a half of the Asia’s mangroves, and 81,000 km of coastline that is the longest in Asia. It also has 5.1 million ha of coral reefs of 450 species comprising 51% of the total Southeast Asia’s coral reefs.
The rich biodiversity, unfortunately, is increasingly under serious threats. In 2000, for example, at least 126 bird, 63 mammal, and 21 reptile species in many parts of the archipelago disappeared due primarily to illegal trading and hunting and destruction of the wildlife’s habitats (especially tropical forests and wetlands). Between 2000 and 2005, at least 1.8 million ha of Indonesia's forests destroyed each year or about 3.47 ha (as large as eight football fields!) per minute because of illegal logging, commercial forestry operations, development of tree-crop estates, and fires.
In 2002 about 86% of Indonesia’s coral reefs severely suffered from minor and major depletions as the consequences of over-fishing, cyanide and dynamite fishing, sedimentation, land-based pollution, and global warming. Unfriendly environmental operations of large industries (especially the multi-national corporations) and also bad environmental governance are thought to be mainly responsible to the degradations.
In fact, Indonesia is known as the first signatory of the 1992 Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD). This country ratified the convention in 1994. The National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAP) was subsequently established in 1993 (known as BAPI or Biodiversity Action Plan for Indonesia) and then revised in 2003 (known as IBSAP or Indonesian Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan) to be implemented in 2003 through 2020. Ironically, biodiversity conservation and other environmental issues are still treated like stepchildren at all state levels and sectors throughout the country.
Poverty, in which over 36 million Indonesians remained in 2005, aggravates the situation. The biodiversity degradations gradually impoverish a huge number of people who vitally depend upon biodiversity (mainly rural farmers and fisher families that constituted 44% of Indonesian workforce in 2005) due to constant decline of their yields. In their attempt to survive, these people become much more dependent upon instant, cheap technologies detrimental to biodiversity such as cyanide and dynamite fishing and illegal logging and poaching. This results in further biodiversity degradations, and then further poverty, and so on (we name this vicious circle the ‘environmental poverty trap’).
Dwarf buffaloes Anoa Bubalus depressicornis and Bubalus quarlesi (not shown here) are among the endemic globally endangered species found in S.E. Sulawesi, eastern Indonesia. Both are categorized as endangered (EN C1 + 2a) in the IUCN Red List.
Anoas remain to be illegally slaughtered for their meat and horns.
Destruction of natural ecosystems such as forests is a real disaster not only to wildlife but also to local communities (especially indigenous peoples) who have very limited choices to survive.
LKP - Lembaga Konservasi
dan Pembangunan (Conservation and Development Institute)
Jl. Saranani 27 Kota Kendari 93111 Sulawesi Tenggara, Indonesia
Tel. +62 401 3012120 - Fax. +62 401 322683 - URL:
www.lkpindonesia.net -
E-mail: lkp@telkom.net
Last updated: July 27, 2007