15 Nov 2024        14:23:39 pm

Geography

Coral Triangle

Tags : Coral Triangle

Topic: Biodiversity

Why in the news?

• Serious dangers brought by fossil fuel expansion to the Coral Triangle, one of the most biodiverse marine areas in the world, were highlighted by a report released at the 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Source: Down To Earth

About Coral Triangle:

• It is often referred to as the ‘Amazon of the seas’.
• It is a huge marine area spanning over 10 million sq. km. in the western Pacific Ocean.
• It includes the waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Timor-Leste and Solomon Islands.
• Named for its staggering number of corals, seventy-five percent of the world’s coral species are found here along with nearly 600 different species of reef-building corals alone.
• It nurtures six of the world’s seven marine turtle species, mangrove forests and more than 2000 species of reef fish.
• Other species found here include Whales, Tuna, Dugong, Hump head wrasse, Dolphins, Porpoises.
• It also supports large populations of commercially important tuna, fuelling a multi-billion-dollar global tuna industry.
• Over 120 million people live here and rely on its coral reefs for food, income and protection from storms.
• Threats:
  • Overfishing: Global demand for tuna drives the fishing industry to harvest at unsustainable levels and has led to an alarming decline of tuna stocks in the Coral Triangle. Similarly, Live reef fish which have long been traded around Southeast Asia as a luxury food item once has expanded rapidly.
  • Destructive Fishing methods: These include cyanide poisoning, dynamite fishing, and Blasting are still widely practiced.
  • Bycatch: Non-target fish species are caught in gillnets, on longlines and in trawls, and then discarded back into the sea. In the Coral Triangle, the impacts of such bycatch affect endangered marine turtles, sharks, and juvenile fish.
  • Climate Change: Warming, rising seas and ocean acidification led to widespread coral reef bleaching, sea level rise, seawater acidification, destruction of mangroves which endanger marine animals like reef fish and marine turtles, negatively impact local livelihoods such as fishing and tourism and remove a natural barrier protecting coastal towns and villages from rising seas and worsening storms.

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