Photo courtesy ARC Centre of Excellence
Spread across a vast swath of ocean spanning Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste, and the Solomon Islands -- an area half the size of the United States -- the Coral Triangle has the highest diversity of marine life of any area on Earth.
This "Amazon of the Seas," as it has been called by the WWF, contains three quarters of the world's known coral species, a third of the world's coral reefs, more than 3,000 species of fish, and the world's richest mangrove forests.
Home to more than 150 million people, the Coral Triangle generates billions of dollars in sea products each year, supporting the livelihood of more than two million fishers. The region is a major spawning ground for tuna, yellowfin and other valuable species that contribute to a perhaps as much as a third of the regional economy.
But all this is at risk from overfishing (including destructive fishing using dynamite and cyanide), coral bleaching and ocean acidification, tourism (including scuba diving), pollution, and sedimentation due to coastal development.
► Read This Entire Post
