Insects represent a substantial proportion of the total terrestrial biodiversity and play a key role in maintaining and conserving the ecosystem functions. They also provide many critically important services through numerous mechanisms, such as decomposition of leaf litter, pollination, suppression of plant growth, and serving as prey for predators. Their potential as effective ecological indicators has been widely used for monitoring the effects of landscape and land-use changes, habitat destruction, modification and isolation because they are abundant, species rich, and ubiquitously occurring.

In agro ecosystems, one particular important group of insects is carnivores that can prevent the sudden increase of many economically important pests. Conservation of natural enemies means that there are enough natural forces in the field that would stabilize the population of many herbivorous insects. Farmers do not have to rely on pesticides any more, and the less pesticide they use, the better it is for everyone.

Nevertheless it is still common to see agriculture and conservation of natural ecosystems as two contrary topics. In fact, there seems to be a constant battle that separates agriculture and conservation. This, however, should not be the norm: preservation of biodiversity is essential for the continuation of the planet and all those living in it. There is a lot of agricultural biodiversity (‘agro biodiversity’) that builds an essential part of our living we cannot do without.

The implication of this is that it is pertinent for people to understand the whole issue of conservation. Conservation is a concept and practice that pertains every area and not only natural ecosystems.

Therefore, it is important to understand how agro-ecosystems may serve to maintain biological diversity and how biodiversity is affected by transformation processes from traditional to modern agro-ecosystems. The connection of agriculture and conservation issues is still a new topic, especially the conservation of agro-biodiversity.

Since insects build an essential part of the agro-biodiversity, PEKA Indonesia has consistently conducted insect research, both in field and laboratory. The research aims to provide useful information about the status of insect species in the ecosystems in relation to habitat conversion as well as promoting the utilization of different insects that benefit the ecosystems’ restitution. Insect research emphasizes several aspects such as insect diversity, distribution and abundance related to habitat modification, forest transformation and changes in land use. PEKA Indonesia also tries to assess the utilization of beneficial insects as biological control agents including its effects on non target species.