Happy World Biodiversity Day! Here is Research Assistant, Nabil explaining the importance of biodiversity here in Indonesia.

Indonesia is a country that has a strategic location in the world in terms of biodiversity because it is located on the equator and flanked by two continents and oceans. This causes Indonesia to be one of the countries with the second highest terrestrial biodiversity in the world after Brazil and is the country with the highest marine biodiversity in the world. But today in terms of utilisation, management, and preservation of biodiversity in Indonesia is still very minimal and biodiversity even continues to experience massive threats to damage such as deforestation, poaching, garbage, and others. This raises many problems that Indonesia has, for example, the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic is happening right now. This reflects Indonesia’s very poor use of biodiversity, why ? Because everything starts from the free trade of wild animals, especially Indonesia which exports and trades illegal animals a lot. SARS-Cov-2 is an unrest caused by the lack of proper use of biodiversity and can be solved by using correct regulations.

But we at LFP are currently responding quickly to cut off trade and integrate the importance of biodiversity into the Wildlife-Friendly Coffee Programme, because biodiversity is essential for successful, sustainable agriculture. We concentrate on the conservation of wild animals that are in or agricultural areas in our village, starting from the Javan slow loris (Nycticebus javanicus), civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus), garden lizards (Eutropis multifasciata) , and much more. In addition we also give tree saplings to local farmers, solving environmentally friendly plant pest problems and preserving biodiversity in Cipaganti Village, Garut Regency, Indonesia.

Hopefully this Biodiversity Day will make people aware of the importance of biodiversity in an ecosystem. Conservation is our common goal for the sustainability of the biodiversity that we have.