TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) recorded 361 endangered plant species conserved across 2,370 living specimens in five BRIN botanical gardens. The figure reflects a scientific analysis of living plant collections compiled through December 2025.
Cibinong Botanical Garden's Coordinator of Living Biological Collection Processing, Lutfi Rahmaningtyas, stated that Indonesia remains a mega-biodiversity country endowed with extraordinary floral richness. Indonesia harbors roughly 30,466 native vascular plant species, accounting for 8.7 percent of the world's total vascular flora.
"This figure is very significant, considering Indonesia's landmass covers merely 1.3 percent of the global total," Lutfi said in a written statement on Tuesday, July 21, 2026.
Lutfi explained that the analysis evaluated four species categories established under the IUCN Red List, an international framework assessing extinction risks. These categories encompass extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable.
"The endangered and vulnerable categories account for roughly 88.4 percent of all analyzed species, indicating that while most collected species still exist in the wild, their populations continue to decline," he said.
Among the 361 endangered species, about 59.3 percent, or 214 species, are native flora to Indonesia, with 63 categorized as endemic. "Endemic species are a national responsibility because they are only found in Indonesia. If these plants become extinct in Indonesia, they will not be found anywhere else in the world," he said.
One species already extinct in the wild is the casturi mango (Mangifera casturi), which survives solely through botanical garden collections.
Lutfi revealed that the analysis also identified 260 out of 361 species housed in only a single botanical garden. "If a disaster occurs at the location of that botanical garden or if they are affected by certain diseases, BRIN does not have a backup collection," he explained.
Among these, 29 species are classified as critically endangered, while 111 are considered critically endangered single-site species. Lutfi stated that BRIN will verify specimen conditions on site, audit collection origins, assess propagation viability, and expand key species as duplicate collections across other botanical gardens.
He emphasized that the five BRIN botanical gardens, alongside 44 affiliated gardens, must function as a mutually supportive national conservation network. Strengthening this network requires alignment with Indonesia's three phytogeographic regions: the Sunda Shelf, Wallacea, and the Sahul Shelf.
The effectiveness of a national botanical garden system hinges on regional balance, specialization, and synergy, rather than merely amassing specimens within a single major institution.
"The primary challenge in conserving endangered plants lies not merely in bringing species into botanical gardens, but in keeping living specimens viable, accurately identified, fully traceable, and integrated into a complementary national collection network," Lutfi said.
Read: Sumatran Orangutan Population Drops Nearly 20 Percent
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