Through the policy, the President instructed 18 ministries and government agencies at the central and regional levels to take integrated steps to mainstream biodiversity conservation in every development activity. It focuses on aspects such as balancing conservation and economic policies in development planning, sustainable utilization of biodiversity for the welfare of society, sustainable exploration and utilization through bioprospecting, low-carbon development in various sectors, development of research and innovation related to Indonesia's biodiversity and law enforcement for biodiversity protection.

At first glance, the instruction gives a breath of fresh air to Indonesia amid the imbalanced relationship between economic development and biodiversity conservation that increasingly threatens the nation.

However, the instruction is surrounded by contradictory realities. First, there is still a high economic dependence on natural resource-based industries such as mining, palm oil plantations, and others that affect sustainable development.

Second is the existence of stronger legislation that, in some ways, prioritizes economic interests over ecology, as seen in the Job Creation Law. Third is the absence of a biodiversity index that can serve as a benchmark and guide for identifying and protecting biodiversity.

Fourth, the weak legal position of this instruction itself makes it insufficient as a foundation for addressing the complex balance between economy and ecology. Fifth is the limited involvement of the public and attention to local wisdom in this instruction.

Furthermore, this instruction is born out of a government development approach dedicated to achieving economic growth. Such policies direct the governance of biodiversity and natural resources toward economic interests.

Over the years, we have experienced that this approach has led to new environmental problems, primarily due to policies that lack a strong scientific basis in biodiversity, strong political and vested interests, corruption and a lack of public transparency.

Consequently, additional problems frequently arise, such as land and tenure conflicts, forest degradation and disputes over natural resource management. The solutions often simplify these issues, as if they could only be resolved through regulations, procedures and law enforcement. As a result, numerous pieces of legislation emerge, but they are ineffective as they do not address the root problems.

Conservation interests are often easily overridden by economic interests based on market mechanisms. These mechanisms contradict the principles of biodiversity.

The success of selling commodities in the market is measured by the sale of homogenous products on a large scale to meet global market demand. Consequently, there is excessive exploitation of natural resources, including certain biodiversity, for business profits and economic growth.

In such situations, environmental regulations are often bypassed or circumvented by new regulations, while the principles of sustainability tend to serve as mere decorations or stamps on existing economic practices. This is where Inpres No. 1/2023 is at risk of becoming a superficial gesture.

Partha Dasgupta, an economist at the University of Cambridge, highlighted in his study The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review (2021) that individuals, businesses, governments and international organizations manage assets through accounting and investment decisions.

However, collectively, they have failed to sustainably manage the global asset portfolio. From 1992 to 2014, global produced capital per capita multiplied, while the value of natural capital per capita decreased by almost 40 percent. If this trend continues, we would need 1.6 earths to maintain the current human lifestyle.

Gross domestic product (GDP), which is often used as a measure of development, according to Dasgupta, is no longer relevant for assessing the economic health of a country because it does not take into account asset depreciation, such as biosphere degradation.

Therefore, the mainstreaming of biodiversity conservation in sustainable development should start with a paradigm shift in development, moving beyond mere economic growth toward balancing our demand for goods and services from nature with nature's capacity to supply them.

This paradigm requires strong biodiversity science support, particularly in accurately identifying the potential wealth of our biodiversity that can be utilized and protected, and determining the extent of exploitative limits. This way, we will have clear guidelines on how to balance conservation needs with the economy.

The efforts of the Environment and Forestry Ministry in pioneering biodiversity big data through the establishment of a Clearing House should be appreciated. With this big data, all data related to Indonesia's biodiversity is available and interconnected.

However, creating and maintaining biodiversity archives and indices is not a simple task and cannot be completed in the short term. With abundant diversity and complex problem scopes, providing this data requires interdisciplinary synergy and involvement of non-governmental elements such as academics, universities, civil society organizations and other civilian elements.

This synergy is expected to go beyond the provision of data and biodiversity indices. It needs to play a more significant role in identifying the challenges of mainstreaming biodiversity, formulating science-based policy strategies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for life underwater and on land, as well as identifying priority interventions and proposals for development steps and implementation, along with monitoring.

Biodiversity science must truly serve as the foundation for policy-making, rather than justifying policies as it has been happening so far.

Science-based biodiversity development policies must be accompanied by mitigating damage to various ecosystems and the threat of species extinction. The extinction of one species will negatively impact the resilience of other species, resulting in a decline in overall biodiversity. Therefore, knowledge, awareness and public participation in the importance of protecting and sustainably utilizing biodiversity must be enhanced.

The development of the new Indonesian Biodiversity Strategic Action Plan (IBSAP) should also focus on environmental conservation efforts and local wisdom. Over 700 ethnic groups in Indonesia rely on the biological resources in their surroundings for their livelihoods.

They possess behaviors, customs, cultures and customary rules related to the appreciation and management of biodiversity, both on land and at sea. This serves as a good example where ecological, economic and societal interests grow in line with the biosphere's carrying capacity.

Mainstreaming biodiversity conservation means placing biodiversity science as the fundamental paradigm in national development policies. This goal is too large and difficult to be imposed through an Inpres.

This is doubly the case if the Inpres is formulated and implemented with the old paradigm of merely advancing economic growth.

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The writer is an environmental specialist at Yayasan KEHATI.