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Biodiversity brings enormous benefits to mankind from direct harvesting of plants and animals for food, medicine, fuel, construction materials, and other uses to aesthetic, cultural, recreational and research values.
Benefits to ecosystems include climate and water regulation; the creation and protection of soils, helping to reduce floods and soil erosion, shoreline protection, and providing natural controls of agricultural pests, all of which promote creative evolution.
Within the ASEAN region alone, these services are estimated to be worth over 200 billion US dollars annually. This amount can save 56 million victims of tuberculosis over a ten-year period; and can feed 862 million people annually for six years.
The natural world is not the just the collection of magnificent and wonderful species. The people of ASEAN also depend upon the vast biodiversity around them to supply their daily needs. Millions of people depend on sustainably harvested fish, timber and fruits for nutrition and their livelihoods. It is estimated that 80 percent of the income of the rural poor is derived from the local biodiversity.
Wood remains the most common fuel throughout the region. In fact, much of the leap and development of the countries of ASEAN during the period of 1970 to 1990 is founded on the sale of commercial timber.
Evidence of man’s dependence is everywhere. Not only do most of ASEAN’s original cultures embrace the concept of maintaining a healthy balance with nature, but the biodiversity of the region also forms an integral part of this living cultures.
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Biodiversity Southeast Asia