THE NEXUS OF BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION AND SUSTAINABLE SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

immediate gain? The World Bank (World Bank, 2021a) estimates that neglecting nature and biodiverse ecosystems and continuing business as usual will lead to the collapse of select nature-based ecosystem services, such as food provision from marine fisheries, wild pollination and timber from natural forests, amounting to US$2.7 trillion per year.

This constitutes a drop of 2.9% in global GDP. Moreover, the impact will be felt hardest by low- and lower-middle income level countries, which tend to be more reliant on nature-driven sectors. For these countries, the impact is likely to be a 10% or higher drop in GDP. For instance, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia would suffer the biggest relative contraction in ecosystem services of 9.7% and 6.5% respectively. To avert such economic losses, a carefully designed mix of nature smart policies, which include the expansion and effective management of protected areas, need to be implemented with urgency.

How Southeast Asia can become a model for Socio-Economic Development Although Southeast Asia only covers 4% of Earth’s surface in landmass area, the region is blessed with abundantly rich terrestrial and marine biodiversity, including 18% of all species as assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Southeast Asia is also home to three of the world’s 17 megadiverse nations and biodiversity hotspots, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The region abounds in endemic species of mammals, birds, and vascular plants besides being the world’s centre for marine biodiversity. It encompasses the most extensive and diverse coral reefs and major mangrove areas in the world. Within this vast pool of biodiversity resources resides the much sought-after potential for the discovery of new products in medicines, foods, materials and amenities for humankind.

Global biodiversity league tables provide data that support Southeast Asia’s richness in biological diversity. One such data set is the global Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII), which examines the percentage of natural biodiversity that remains across the world and in individual countries. It reveals that tropical countries, including in Southeast Asia, have best retained their biodiversity and house 80% of the world’s biodiversity (Scholes & Biggs, 2005). In contrast G7 countries, like the UK, occupy the bottom 10% of the league table, having depleted their natural capital to alarming levels in the wake of rapid industrialisation and economic development. In fact, the UK ranks lowest among the G7 nations registering a BII of less than 50% (Briggs, 2021). Southeast Asia therefore serves as a hotbed for further biodiversity research, development and innovation that could drive new and exciting economic development to meet the environmental ecosystem service needs of the global community. If managed responsibly the region could even be the vanguard to realign the global nexus between biodiversity and sustainable economic growth that guarantees both fiscal and non-fiscal returns.

Historically, economists and policymakers have considered conservation as a ‘nice-tohave’, but in many cases oppositional to the more conventional model of exploitation 8