Biodiversity and its potential for economic development

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Language: English

Indonesia is proud to have one of the world’s largest repositories of biological resources. Motivated by the assumption that biodiversity can bring huge financial returns, often Indonesia’s political leaders urged monopolistic scientific exploration. Currently, however, many biotas are threatened with extinction due to industrial scale expansion for agriculture, mining, aquaculture, and fisheries which damaging both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem. On the other side, Indonesia is still struggling in coordinating the documentation of the biodiversity database which is accessible openly by researchers and the public.

Recently, during G20, Indonesia has affirmed its commitment to working together to sustainably produce and distribute food, ensure that food systems better contribute to adaptation and mitigation to climate change, and halting and reversing biodiversity loss as stated in the G20 Bali Leaders’ Declaration. This commitment might bring hope for open research to build good and mutual understanding and a balance interest among stakeholders, especially between researchers, government or policymaker, and businesses.

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