Biological Resources Potential and the Recent State of International Cooperation in Indonesia

Indonesia is a mega-biodiversity country having at least one trillion US Dollars value of biological resources per year over the next 20 years. Indonesia is home to 11 percent of the world’s flowering plant species and 12 percent of all mammals. Many of Indonesia’s species and more than half of the archipelago’s endemic plant species are found nowhere else on the Earth. This information is just a small portion of all higher plants and animals being found in Indonesia. Former studies described that total number of species in Indonesia is estimated more than 1,000,000 and most of them remain unknown scientifically. Most of lower plants and animals have not been studied yet, so that greatest portion of Indonesia’s biological resources has never been assessed with respect to its economic value or conservation status. Many developed countries are building cooperation with Indonesia on resources, mainly in the fields of grant aid, socio-economic services, R & D, researcher exchange, technology transfer, infrastructure, education/training, finance, etc. Indonesia will obtain greater benefits and management of its biological richness via increasing its international capacity to add value and information to its biological diversity. These goals can be achieved by close international collaboration on search of important biological resources and other bioactive products that have potential economic values. Development of biological resource-based technology stands as the industry of the 21st century and, therefore, Indonesia has a unique opportunity to lead the process in the world.