The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

All 10 ASEAN Member States are parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, with the latest country Brunei Darussalam acceding to it on 27 July 2008 as its 191 party, and as such are obliged to implement relevant forest and forest-related Programs of the Convention, namely:

1. An Ecosystem Approach that encompasses 12 principles to facilitate and enhance integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way. More specifically, it emphasizes that management should be decentralized to the lowest appropriate level; involve all relevant sectors of society and scientific disciplines; align incentives to promote biodiversity conservation and sustainable use; reduce market distortions that adversely affect biological diversity; and seek an appropriate balance between, and integration of, conservation and use of biological diversity.
2. A Global Strategy for Plant Conservation that contains 16 targets that provide guidance for Parties to the Convention and Governments for developing national and/or regional targets for incorporation into relevant plans and programs, including National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAP). Some of the most pertinent targets are the call for at least 10 percent of each of the world's ecological regions be effectively conserved, 50 percent of the most important areas for plant diversity be assured and protected; 60 percent of the world's threatened species be conserved in situ; and no species of wild flora is endangered by international trade.
3. An Expanded Programme of Work on Forest Biological Diversity that is framed around 3 program elements, 12 goals, 27 objectives and 130 activities to guide and regulate interventions in forestry. It recognizes the regional scale of biological diversity conservation and use, and underscores the importance of traditional forest-related knowledge, as well as its implementation through existing policy processes, such as national forest programmes (nfp's). More specifically, it emphasizes the need to apply the ecosystem approach to the management of all types of forests; reduce the threats and mitigate the impacts of threatening processes on forest biological diversity; mitigate the negative impacts of climate change on forest biodiversity; protect, recover and restore forest biological diversity, especially in degraded secondary forest and in forest established on former forestlands; promote sustainable use of forest resources to enhance the conservation of forest biological diversity and prevent losses caused by unsustainable harvesting of timber and non-timber forest resources; develop good governance practices; review, revise and implement forest and forest-related laws, including tenure and planning systems; and promote forest law enforcement and address related trade.
4. A Program of Work on Protected Areas that comprises four interlinked program elements of 16 goals and 16 targets with 124 suggested activities, of which 93 of the activities are for action by Parties to the Convention and the balance of 31 are for the Executive Secretary of the Convention. Some of the pertinent targets include having by 2010 a global network of terrestrially comprehensive, representative and effectively managed national and regional protected area system; by 2015 all protected areas and protected area systems are integrated into the wider land- and seascape, and relevant sectors, by applying the ecosystem approach and taking into account ecological connectivity and the concept of ecological networks; by 2010 transboundary protected areas between neighboring protected areas across national boundaries be established and strengthened, and effectively managed by 2012 using participatory and science-based site planning processes; and by 2010 national and regional frameworks are adopted and implemented to enable effective monitoring and in evaluating progress of protected-area coverage, status and trends at national, regional and global levels.

The ASEAN Experts Group on International Forest Policy Processes (AEG-IFPP) deals with the forest-related CBD issues in ASEAN.