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If nature and natural resources were measures of economic wealth, the Asia and Pacific region would be one of the Earth’s richest. Its ecosystems provide the essentials of life to millions of people—from seafood and game animals, to fodder, fuelwood, timber, and pharmaceutical products. They play a major role in economies and are an important social safety net for the rural poor. It is the poor, with limited assets and greater dependence on common property resources, who suffer most when biodiversity is lost.
Asia and the Pacific’s unique ecological zones span the world’s highest mountains and its deepest seas. Between these extremes are our planet’s second largest rain forest complex, more than 50% of its remaining coral reefs and 17% of its most important wetlands. The region is home to four of the Earth’s “mega-diversity countries,” which are nations endowed with an extraordinary wealth of biological resources.
In the past, many people in the region associated conservation of biological diversity with the need to protect rare and endangered species from extinction. Today, people recognize that to preserve species we must also conserve their habitat—the Earth’s natural ecosystems. Conservation efforts must be dedicated to ensure that the full variety of life—species diversity, genetic diversity within species, and the diversity of ecosystems—is preserved.
Protected areas are one of the primary means for safeguarding biological diversity. However, pressures caused by economic development and other human activities make it difficult to protect natural areas that are large enough to accommodate entire ecosystems. Biodiversity corridors and ecological networks must be created and managed to prevent ecosystem fragmentation and to ensure long-term conservation of biodiversity, threatened species, and ecological processes.
Natural ecosystems provide fundamental life-support services, purification of air and water, detoxification and decomposition of wastes, regulation of climate, and regeneration of soil fertility. In short, ecosystems provide for production and maintenance of biodiversity, from which the key ingredients of our agricultural, pharmaceutical, and industrial enterprises are derived.
A sustainable flow of goods and services from healthy natural ecosystems is indispensable for Asian and Pacific countries to achieve equitable, sustainable economic growth. This is, however, far from a sure bet. Conservation efforts to date have been insufficient to reverse the trends in unsustainable use. In some areas, this has resulted in a degradation or decline in resources and is hampering efforts to improve people’s health and livelihoods, and to reduce poverty levels. Future development opportunities will be further compromised unless proactive steps are taken to reverse the rate of biodiversity loss.
Conservation efforts must be dedicated to ensure that the full variety of life—species diversity, genetic diversity within species, and the diversity of ecosystems—is preserved
The conservation and sustainable use of natural resources underpins ADB’s objective to fight poverty and promote sustainable development in the Asia and Pacific region. ADB upholds environmental sustainability as a key element of the organization’s overarching Poverty Reduction Strategy. One way that is being done is through ADB’s firm support for the Millennium Development Goals.
ADB’s support for biodiversity involves many innovative programs aimed at conserving ecosystems—coral reefs, forests, wetlands, montane areas, and dry zones. From 1988 to 2004, ADB approved about $1.5 billion for loans and technical assistance projects that have biodiversity conservation components. The projects have focused on fisheries and coastal zone management; forestry, wildlife conservation, and watershed management; and protected area management and biodiversity conservation. Focal countries assisted in biodiversity conservation have been Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Recently, ADB has made use of its partnership with the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to co-fund projects in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
An important part of ADB’s biodiversity work is involvement in managing coastal zones that provide livelihoods and harbor a variety of ecosystems with high biological diversity. Protecting the environment and ensuring sustainable development in such areas require integrating a wide range of ecological, social, cultural, governance, and economic considerations.
ADB supports programs that attempt to meet the needs of the coastal zones using the integrated coastal zone management approach, which attempts to tie together the needs of sustainable development with integrated resource management. Communities play an important role in project governance, while research and monitoring programs provide management options and potential risks.
For example, an 18-month regional technical assistance program started in October 2002—the Coastal and Marine Resources Management and Poverty Reduction in South Asia—attempts to solve some of the coastal problems in cooperation with the governments of India, Maldives, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The project aims to reduce poverty by strengthening the management of ecologically sensitive coastal and marine areas and promote regional cooperation.
Under the TA, for instance, the Korangi Creek area in the Indus River delta in Pakistan has been selected as a highpriority coastal zone. The people there are facing dramatically lower fish stocks and shrinking mangrove stands, alongside increasing poverty and health problems.
In partnership with the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and regional governments, and using integrated coastal zone management as a planning and development tool, ADB and the participating countries have made significant headway toward long-term coastal zone planning and have developed a list of high priority areas, including Korangi Creek.
For a long time, ADB has supported the conservation of the rich ecosystems along Indonesia’s 81,000-kilometer coastline—home to coral reefs, mangroves, sea grass beds, lagoons, and estuaries that rival any of the planet’s most diverse ecosystems. The coastal zone is home to 20,000 species of mollusks, 2,000 types of crustaceans, 6 different sea turtles, 30 marine mammals, more than 8,500 species of fish, 450 types of coral—and millions of people.
To protect that richness, ADB is participating in a great variety of innovative programs. One of the most successful is the Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management Project (COREMAP), started in 1998 with support from several agencies, and now in the second phase of a 15-year initiative.
The COREMAP is one of 20 ADB projects, with a total of more than $500 million in financing, designed to protect, rehabilitate, and sustain Indonesia’s coral reefs, the associated ecosystems, and other coastal resources.
Using marine-protected areas, fish restocking, mangrove reforestation, and other approaches, the COREMAP is rehabilitating four major coastal zones representing those under greatest threat in Indonesia. It has also helped establish community-control rights over reefs in pilot sites.
In its first phase, management systems were developed in the four pilot zones. The second phase expands the project to other sites based on the models developed, while the third will secure the administrative, economic, and financial institutions to sustainably manage Indonesia’s coral reef ecosystems.
Among other things, the COREMAP program has had success in stopping dynamite and cyanide fishing. For instance, local villagers, some of them fishers themselves, were recruited to patrol selected beaches in Indonesia’s Riau Province, south of Singapore. Equipped only with binoculars and walkie-talkies, and linked to local police, they were able to chase off or apprehend dynamite fishers engaged in illegal fishing activities on the reef. Villagers reported a quick rise in the fish catch and increasing numbers of previously scarce species.
The massive earthquake off the coast of Aceh Province in Indonesia on 26 December 2004 set off tsunamis that devastated coastal zones in countries surrounding the Indian Ocean. Besides the tragic loss of human lives and severe losses to infrastructure and livelihoods, the disaster also had an impact on the regional environment, including damage to coral reefs, mangroves, and sea grass beds. The fisheries sector was also hugely affected.
ADB has been responding to this disaster by reprogramming financial resources from existing projects in support of the rehabilitation and reconstruction process in Aceh. For instance, funds and expertise of the COREMAP and the Marine and Coastal Resources Management Project will be applied for targeted activities in Aceh Province. In addition, ADB will provide new grant resources for rehabilitation and restoration of ecologically important marine and coastal habitats and for mitigation of the impact of future disasters.
Nothing can replace the loss suffered by so many tens of thousands, but the funds will be used to implement programs to help survivors restore lost livelihoods.
ADB, with cofinancing from GEF, is supporting a multiagency effort to preserve major wetlands and to introduce more environmentally sustainable agricultural practices in the PRC’s Sanjiang Plain using an integrated ecosystem management approach.
The Sanjiang Plain, an area covering 108,900 square kilometers, or the size of Republic of Korea, is one of the PRC’s richest in globally significant flora and fauna. The plain supports about 37 ecosystems, 1,000 species of plants, and 528 vertebrate species, including 23 globally threatened species on the World Conservation Union Red List.
From 1988 to 2004, ADB approved about $1.5 billion for loans and technical assistance projects that have biodiversity conservation components
Over the last 5 decades, however, both forest and wetlands on the plain have been reduced to a fifth of their original size. The Sanjiang Plain Wetlands Protection Project will introduce integrated management of watersheds that will protect humans and biological diversity. The project will restore wetlands, repopulate reserves with globally threatened species and replant forests (see Natural Solutions)
Forests account for a major share of the earth’s biomass, and conserving them is of central importance to biodiversity protection. Forests in Asia and the Pacific account for about 15% of total forest and wooded land, and many of its most valuable and rarest ecosystems. Forested regions are also home to hundreds of millions of Asians, who rely on the ecosystems for their basic needs—including food, fuel wood, timber and pharmaceuticals—and work.
ADB’s spending on conservation of forest-based biodiversity accounted for approximately 45% of its biodiversity-linked projects between 1988 and 2004.
Among the projects, the Forestry Sector Project in Viet Nam, begun in 1997 and expected to be completed in 2005, was designed to restore and improve forest cover in hilly and mountainous areas in three critical watersheds found in four provinces.
As in other countries of Southeast Asia, Viet Nam’s forests are rich habitat for some of the world’s most endangered species. But they have dwindled under huge population pressure and unsustainable use.
The Government aims to increase Viet Nam’s forest cover from an estimated 30% of its current land area to about 43% by 2010.
ADB is strengthening partnerships with civil society to work toward common biodiversity conservation goals. Under a memorandum of understanding, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and ADB have been working together for the past few years. For instance, they are now increasing their cooperation in the Mekong River Basin, especially with regard to conservation efforts for freshwater and forests. At the 3rd World Conservation Congress in Bangkok in November 2004, ADB and IUCN formalized their cooperation by signing a memorandum of understanding. ADB’s current collaboration with IUCN is exemplified by the Health, Poverty, and Conservation Study, which ADB is funding through the regional technical assistance project, the Poverty and Environment Program. This study is a structured learning exercise that is examining the links between health, poverty, and conservation.
GEF was established in 1991 to finance projects in the areas of biodiversity loss, climate change, international waters management, land degradation, and atmospheric ozone depletion. Since it began, it has provided grants totaling about $4.5 billion.
GEF serves as the primary financial mechanism for implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity, one of the international environmental key agreements adopted by world leaders at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The CBD aims to conserve biological diversity, encourage the sustainable use of its components, and share its benefits equitably.
ADB has pledged its support to helping achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), including MDG Goal 7, “Ensure Environmental Sustainability.” A key target of the MDG 7 is reducing biological diversity loss, which will be measured by, among other things, the proportion of land area covered by forests and the extent of protected areas to maintain biological diversity.
Strong attention to environmental sustainability is essential for countries in Asia and the Pacific if they are to achieve equitable and sustainable growth. In many parts of the region, conservation of biodiversity and wise use of natural resources are necessary to ensure environmental sustainability.
Strong attention to environmental sustainability is essential for countries in Asia and the Pacific if they are to achieve equitable and sustainable growth
For Asia and the Pacific, eliminating poverty, protecting the environment, and conserving biological diversity will require enhanced partnerships, innovation, and even greater commitment. Working with its development partners, ADB will continue to support biodiversity conservation and work toward ensuring environmental sustainability.
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