Program Thrusts
SEAMEO BIOTROP believes that its new program thrusts are current
critical concerns confronting the Southeast Asian region in general. The
urgency to address these concerns, particularly through research, would
be significant for the sustainable development in the region. These
program thrusts are also envisioned to integrate the global and regional
concerns for climate change, poverty alleviation, food and nutrition
security, and gender which are core themes of the UN 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development (SDG 2030) and the ASEAN Vision 2020.
The program thrusts and their brief definition and scope are as follows:
1. Restoration of Degraded Ecosystem
Restoration of degraded ecosystem is a process of assisting the
recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed.
This is indispensable to reverse the structure and function of a
degraded ecosystem, habitat area, or site for species integrity and
ecosystems that put the future’s welfare as the final purpose. This
program thrust may include the following topics: understanding and
minimizing the differences between natural and anthropogenic disturbances
(e.g. deforestation, ore and mineral mining, introduction of invasive
alien plant and animal species, pollution, climate change, etc.) which
interfere with the functioning of an ecosystem at spatial and temporal
scales; determining the resilience of an ecosystem; use of emerging
concepts in new and successful restoration technologies and performance
standards; assessment of current ecology restoration practices; ways of
initiating, assisting or accelerating ecological succession processes;
improved understanding of the ecological, economic and socio-cultural
role and importance of succession biology; investigating the role of
soil physical, chemical, and microbiological processes (e.g.
application of beneficial soil microorganism), genetics, resource
mapping, taxonomy and inventory, etc.
2. Sustainable Management of Intensively Used Ecosystems/Landscapes
This program thrust focuses on managing areas at various scales of
natural resources for productive and efficient long-term use. This may
involve applying appropriate natural resource management approaches on
existing ecological services and biological resources, while also
adopting appropriate utilization practices to address the socio-economic
and cultural needs of society toward a better quality of life. This
program thrust could cover: the determination of appropriate land-use and
production options, the valuation of environmental services; food/ feed and
nutrition security; the use of biodiversity for enhanced and sustained
production; biotechnology approach to sustain productivity; the reduction of food loss; the payment for environmental services; agroforestry and novel
crops using native species; sustainable use of species, renewable
resource use/harvesting; policy development to support government and
NGO programs in sustainability, etc.
3. Conservation and Sustainable Use of Unique Ecosystems/Landscapes of High Biodiversity
This program thrust could generally refer to measuring, protecting, and
conserving elements of unique ecosystems and/or landscapes of high
biodiversity from further degradation, enhancing landscape and habitat
connectivity, and building resilience to disturbance. This program
thrust could cover: resilience analysis and management; rapid
methodology and approaches for identifying high biodiversity and unique
ecosystems; adaptive resource management; ecosystem health assessment
and monitoring; landscape connectivity analysis and restoration
planning; mapping and inventory of residual native forests, biodiversity
hotspots and other sensitive areas; environmental risk analysis and
impact assessment; preservation of genetic diversity and genetic improvement;
analysis of and compliance with current environmental protection and
conservation policies; prevention and control of invasive species,
mine-site rehabilitation pollution, forest fires, etc.