More than half of Indonesia's biodiversity left "unrecorded": official
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An Indonesian official said that more than half of the country's biodiversity remains unrecorded for lack of knowledge and poor awareness of local authorities, local media reported?in Jakarta?Saturday.
"Indonesia is one of the 17 largest biodiversity hotspots on the planet, but we have not recorded most of it," Utami Andayani, a deputy assistant of biodiversity convention at the state environment ministry, was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying.
She said that Indonesia was still vulnerable to biodiversity loss, brought about mainly by human population growth, deforestation, illegal trade in plants and animals and human- induced climate change.
"It is difficult for us to complain if other countries exploit our biodiversity for commercial purposes, such as medicine because of the lack of data to prove the species are from Indonesia," Utami said.
She warned that biodiversity loss would pose a significant threat to the country's food security. The government has claimed that Indonesia has 12 percent (515 species) of the world's mammal species, the second highest level after Brazil, and 17 percent (1, 531 species) of the total bird species, the fifth highest in the world.
It said that the country was also home to 15 percent (270 species) of amphibian and reptile species, 31,746 species of vascular plants and 37 percent of the world's species of fish.
However, the report said only 20 of the more than 400 regencies have begun to catalog the local species so far.
Biodiversity-related issues are among key environmental matters this year as the United Nations has named 2010 the International Biodiversity Year.
Indonesia ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1994.
