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Fortunate is Southeast Asia, known as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, as it cradles a treasure trove of plant and animal species.
Despite occupying a meager three percent of the earth’s total surface, the ASEAN region is home to 20 percent of all known species of plants and animals, making it critically important to global environmental sustainability. The mountains, jungles, lakes, rivers, and seas of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam form one of the biggest biodiversity pools in the world.
The region includes three mega-diverse countries (Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines); several bio-geographical units (e.g. Malesia, Wallacea, Sundaland, Indo-Burma, and the Central Indo-Pacific); and numerous centers of concentration of restricted-range bird, plant and insect species.
Southeast Asia has one-third or 284,000 square kilometers of all coral reefs, which are among the most diverse in the world. Common land and water borders have allowed the ASEAN Member States to share many species that are biologically diverse from the rest of the world.
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Biodiversity Southeast Asia