Indonesia is an archipelago with tropical climate, located between two continents, Asia and Australia, as well as two oceans, the Pacific and Indian. 

Geographically, Indonesian landscape forms a bioregion which makes it have different plants and animals, both with Asia and with Australia. Usually, people recognises this difference due to the Wallace line. Said unique geography position then makes Indonesia to have rather high level of biodiversity. 

Unfortunately, some of the endemic species of Indonesia, those that contributes to create a high biodiversity condition, are also facing extinction. Sumateran tiger, Komodo dragon, Proboscis monkey, and elephant, are just a few examples of Indonesian species that face the possibility of extinction. 

Meanwhile on December 7-19 2022, the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) has successfully been held in Montreal, Canada. COP 15 is a meeting of governments, which take part in the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD). The treaty was signed during the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, and it has three main goals. They are conserving biodiversity, sustainably use the biodiversity, and ensuring the justice on the use of genetic resources in the world. 

The event of COP 15 has signified a crucial role that biodiversity would play in the future, which has also been widely recognised by the international community. Therefore, the effort to increase the literacy on the essence and role of biodiversity to the general public should be optimised further. 

What is Biodiversity and why it has an essential role in this planet? 

According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), biodiversity could be defined as variability between living organism, which include in the ecosystem that they inhabit. 

Then, why it has such an essential role in this planet? 

Biodiversity is one of the most valuable asset that the world ever has. There are tendencies to consider biodiversity merely as an object with aesthetic value. In truth, it is biodiversity that sustains the lives of human, animals, and other living being in this world. 

Human relies on nature to provide food, fresh water, and prevent floods as well as other extreme meteorological events. This function of sustaining livelihoods are intertwined with biodiversity, and therefore both of them could never be separated with each other. Conserving biodiversity means protecting the future of the planet. 

Drivers of biodiversity loss in the global scale 

There are uncontrollable forces that could affect the ecosystem stability and biodiversity, such as natural disaster in the forms of volcanic eruption, forest fire, tsunami, and others. That said, a degraded ecosystem still has the capacity undertake a natural succession to regain its most ideal condition. 

Setting aside the natural disaster factor, the main drivers of destabilised ecosystem and the loss of biodiversity is human intervention. 

The uncontrollable growth of human population would be the main driver of biodiversity loss. The increased number of population leads to an increased use of natural resources, and failure to incorporate sustainable principles in the use of these natural resources will inevitably lead to a massive loss of biodiversity. 

Strategy to preserve biodiversity 

There are several strategies to protect the existence of biodiversity. Top of the list would be a regulation in nature conservation effort. It would be an essential step, due to the pressure from economic activities that would demand the conversion of natural landscape. 

In addition, the following actions could be undertaken to protect biodiversity: 

• Mainstreaming the concept of biodiversity in government and communities; 
• Promoting sustainable use of natural resources; 
• Providing access on participative planning, knowledge management, as well as improving the capacity of human resources. 

 Through strategic investment in carbon projects, CarbonX would definitely partake in the conservation effort of biodiversity.