The recent nomination of five protected areas to join the ASEAN Heritage Parks network marks another milestone in the region’s efforts to conserve its rich but highly threatened biodiversity – and sheds more light on this valuable network of nature reserves and marine parks.Managed by the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), ASEAN Heritage Parks are defined as “protected areas of high conservation importance which preserve complete spectrums of representative ecosystems of the ASEAN region.”A

Oceans play an essential role for life on earth by generating most of the oxygen we breathe, providing us with food, regulating our climate, cleaning the water we drink and delivering a variety of valuable ingredients for medicinal uses.However, humans are continuously threatening the oceans by carrying out destructive fishing practices, overfishing, creating pollution which in turn leads to coral bleaching and other impacts from climate change.

As the world celebrates Earth Day today, the theme for this year – protecting threatened and endangered species – remains as important as ever.The world’s largest environmental movement, the annual Earth Day works with more than 75,000 partners in nearly 192 countries to educate the public about environmental issues.Apart from climate change and the fight to end plastic pollution, the protection of endangered species ranks as one of the most pressing environmental concerns of our time.What is