In light of so many challenges threatening global food security - population growth, high food prices, outbreaks of disease, increased occurrences of natural disasters, climate variability - safeguarding biological diversity for food and agriculture is more important than ever. What are some of the key areas where preserving biodiversity is crucial to ensuring food security for future generations?

The WOCAT-LADA-DESIRE mapping tool is based on the original WOCAT mapping questionnaire (WOCAT, 2007). It has been expanded to pay more attention to issues such as biological and water degradation, it also places more emphasis on direct and socio-economic causes of these phenomena, including their impacts on ecosystem services. It evaluates what type of land degradation is actually happening where and why and what is being done about it in terms of sustainable land management (SLM) in the form of a questionnaire.

Most of the terrestrial biodiversity within the Asia-Pacific region is contained within forests. Protected areas are the mainstay for biodiversity conservation although other forest areas are also important. Habitat destruction and extraction of high-value species are major threats to biodiversity. Ecosystem stability is based on interdependence among constituent species and with biodiversity loss, resilience to change is reduced. Awareness raising, stringent environmental impact assessments, and improved law enforcement are required.