Indigenous people of Papua are dependent on the extraction of plants and animals in the tropical forests. However, despite the global importance of these forests, approaches to increasing people awareness on the importance of forests to support both biodiversity conservation and local livelihood is disparate limited. In the last decades, humans have more than ever been changing the world’s ecosystems to meet the growing demands for food, freshwater, timber, fibre, fuel and minerals. Biodiversity in itself provides a range of services, including aesthetic, cultural and recreational values as well as goods that have direct use value and enhances many other ecosystem services on which humans depend. Some ecosystem properties are initially insensitive to species loss because ecosystems may have different species that carry out similar functional roles and some species may contribute little to ecosystem properties.

This study will provide a comprehensive understanding on habitat associations and importance of different features for cuscus along the coastal environment in Papua. This information will improve our knowledge of the relevance of different habitats and features for cuscus. We will also use the knowledge to approach local communities to establish particular areas for further development of cuscus and its habitat conservation measures for selected areas along the coastal of Papua. In terms of community base approach, this research will contribute to our knowledge on developing pilot for protected areas network as a key to address threats to endemic species and to contribute biodiversity conservation.