The United Nations (UN) marked 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity to raise awareness among the public and generate pressure on world’s leaders to curb the unprecedented loss in biodiversity due to human activity.

In a statement, the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) of the UN Environment Program (UNEP) said “humans are part of the nature’s rich diversity and have the power to protect of destroy it.”

“Biodiversity, the variety of life on Earth, is essential to sustaining the living networks and systems that provide us all with health, wealth, food, fuel and the vital services our lives depend on. Human activity is causing the diversity of life on Earth to be lost at a greatly accelerated rate,” it explained.

Philippine-based ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) executive director Rodrigo Fuentes said 2010 is also a time to celebrate successes in achieving a significant reduction in an urgent need to conserve the Philippines’ and ASEAN’s biodiversity in order to sustain the lives of over 500 million Southeast Asians, including 90 million Filipinos, who depend on biodiversity for food, medicine, clothing, livelihood, and shelter,” Fuentes said.

In Southeast Asia, member-states of the ASEAN are signatories to the CBD and other multilateral environmental agreements, including the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna and the Convention on Wetlands.

ASEAN, with support from the European Union, established the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity to coordinate regional efforts on biodiversity Conservation.

“Many international and local non-government organizations have placed biodiversity conservation in their radars. The business sector is starting to include biodiversity conservation in their corporate social responsibility activities, knowing that biodiversity is the source of their raw materials,” he said.