Coral Triangle

The Coral Triangle (CT) is a roughly triangular area in the tropical waters around Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste. This area contains at least 500 species of reef-building corals in each ecoregion. The Coral Triangle is located between the Pacific and Indian oceans and encompasses portions of two biogeographic regions: the Indonesian-Philippines Region, and the Far Southwestern Pacific Region. As one of eight major coral reef zones in the world, the Coral Triangle is recognized as a global centre of marine biodiversity and a global priority for conservation. Its biological resources make it a global hotspot of marine biodiversity. Known as the "Amazon of the seas" (by analogy to the Amazon rainforest in South America), it covers 5.7 million square kilometres (2,200,000 sq mi) of ocean waters. It contains more than 76% of the world's shallow-water reef-building coral species, 37% of its reef fish species, 50% of its razor clam species, six out of seven of the world's sea turtle species, and the world's largest mangrove forest. The epicenter of that coral diversity is found in the Bird’s Head Seascape of Indonesian Papua, which hosts 574 species (95% of the Coral Triangle, and 72% of the world’s total). In 2014, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) reported that the gross domestic product of the marine ecosystem in the Coral Triangle is roughly $1.2 trillion per year and provides food to over 120 million people. According to the Coral Triangle Knowledge Network, the region annually brings in about $3 billion in foreign exchange income from fisheries exports, and another $3 billion from coastal tourism revenues.
The World Wide Fund for Nature considers the region a top priority for marine conservation, and is addressing ecological threats to the region through its Coral Triangle Program, launched in 2007. The center of biodiversity in the Triangle is the Verde Island Passage in the Philippines. Coral reef area in the region to have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site are Tubbataha Reef Natural Park in the Philippines and Raja Ampat UNESCO Global Geopark in Indonesia.
While it covers only 1.6% of the planet's oceanic area, the region has 76% of all known coral species in the world. As a habitat for 52% of Indo-Pacific reef fishes and 37% of the world's reef fishes, it contains the greatest diversity of coral reef fishes in the world More than 3,000 species of bony fish are distributed over more than 90% of the Coral Triangle. Among the largest of these fish are the whale shark, the coelacanth and the chimaerans.
The Coral Triangle is the epicentre for the biodiversity, not only of corals and fish, but also of many other marine organisms. It contains roughly 950 species of Molluscs and 458 crustacean species. It is also the habitat for six of the world's seven marine turtle species.
Thirteen percent of the Coral Triangle has been identified as being clustered into hotspots of high marine biodiversity importance, including the southern part of the Philippines, the north-eastern part of Sabah in Malaysia, the central to eastern zones of Indonesia, the eastern part of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The parts of the Coral Triangle that have the highest number of species comprise 6% of the triangle's total area. They include stretches along the coast of the Philippines (including the northern coast of Luzon, Bohol, Mindanao, Palawan, and the Sulu Archipelago), Malaysia (the northeastern coast of Sabah), Indonesia (the northern and southeastern part of Sulawesi, the Banda Sea, Maluku Islands (the Mollucas), and the Raja Ampat Archipelago of Indonesian Papua), Papua New Guinea (the coastal areas of Madang Province, New Britain, Milne Bay, the Louisiade Archipelago, and Bougainville Island), and the Solomon Islands (Guadalcanal and Makira-Ulawa Province). However, more than half (70%) of the zones in the Coral Triangle are classified as low species richness areas.
The sites of highest marine biodiversity importance in the Coral Triangle include: (1) the northern tip of Sulawesi, (2) Ambon Island, (3) Kai Islands (also Kei Islands), (4) Raja Ampat Archipelago of Indonesian Papua, (5) the Verde Island Passage in the Philippines, (6) the southern part of Negros in the Philippines, and (7) Cebu in the Philippines.
The greatest extent of mangrove forest in the world is also found in the Coral Triangle. These forests’ large area and extraordinary range of habitats and environmental conditions have played a major role in maintaining the staggering biodiversity of the Coral Triangle.
The Coral Triangle countries comprised a minimum of 10 to a maximum of 19 seagrass species that belong to four distinct families (Hydrocharitaceae, Cymodoceaceae, Zosteraceae, and Ruppiaceae) and cover almost 58,550.63 km. While a total of 21 species of seagrass have been found throughout this eco-region.
A joint Indonesian–U.S. marine survey expedition in 2008 discovered deep-sea biodiversity and underwater active volcanoes at a depth of 3800 meters along the western ridge. Around 40 newly identified deep-sea coral species were found there. Most are whitish in color, because the area is not a habitat for colorful algae species, which are generally shallow-living. Hydrothermal vents and coral reefs at a depth of 4000 meters were found to have created a habitat for marine niche shrimps, crabs, barnacles, and sea cucumbers.
According to Indonesia's Minister of Research and Technology / National Research and Innovation Agency (Menristek / Head of BRIN), Bambang Permadi Soemantri Brodjonegoro, Coral Triangle countries are in need of a greater number of taxonomists and oceanographers to address the challenges of cataloguing the biodiversity in the area. He has said that goal of this research is not only to increase human knowledge, but also to apply that knowledge to the project of protecting coastal and marine biodiversity from extinction.
There are three different theories as to why the Coral Triangle (East Indies Triangle) has such a high diversity of species, and each theory proposes a different explanatory model. They are usually termed the “centre of origin” model, the “centre of overlap” model, and the “centre of accumulation” model.
The Coral Triangle lies at a crossroads of rapidly increasing anthropogenic activities, (population growth, economic growth and international trade), habitat change, over-exploitation of resources, and climate change. Competition, predation, fishing practices, marine pollution, marine debris, dredging, sunscreen contamination, climate change, ocean acidification (OA), disease, recreational diving, sea level rise, temperature increase and other issues briefly described in environmental issues with coral reefs.
Ocean acidification is a global threat to coral reef ecosystems. Based on the biodiversity in the Coral Triangle area, damage will come to many sectors, because the coral reef is a fundamental ecosystem in the coastal area. Started by rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the calcium carbonate decrease then enhances bioerosion and dissolution rate. The CT should have oligotrophic waters, so the light would penetrate and support photosynthesis by zooxanthellae algae. However coral reef in West Maui, Hawaii, has a sustained condition of nutrient-rich, lower pH submarine groundwater discharge that lowers the pH of seawater. Also, the corals are exposed to nitrate concentrations 50 times higher than ambient. Rates of coral calcification are substantially decreased, and rates of bioerosion are orders of magnitude higher than in healthy oligotrophic waters. Measurement using heavier nitrogen isotope (δ15N) values shows that eutrophication of reef seawater by land‐based sources of pollution can magnify the effects of ocean acidification through nutrient-driven-bioerosion. These conditions could contribute to the collapse of coastal coral reef ecosystems sooner than current projections based only on ocean acidification predict.
The biodiversity and natural productivity of the coral triangle are under threat from poor marine management (primarily from coastal development, overfishing and destructive fishing), lack of political will, poverty, high market demand, local disregard for rare and threatened species, climate change (warming, ocean acidification and rising sea levels). Coral reefs have experienced mass bleaching, which threaten to degrade the important ecosystems. An estimated 120 million people live within the Coral Triangle, of which approximately 2.25 million are fishers who depend on healthy seas to make a living. These threats are putting at risk livelihoods, economies, and future market supplies for species such as tuna. Studies have highlighted the alarming decline of coral cover in this region. However, a report published in 2021 described the reefs of the Coral Triangle as having shown resilience to large scale bleaching events. The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) reported in 2021, that the East Asian Seas region, which includes the Coral Triangle, was the only region where coral cover was substantially greater in 2019 (36.8%) as compared to 1983 (32.8%), which is the year that the earliest data was collected. This increase in coral cover occurred notwithstanding the reefs were affected by large scale coral bleaching events during the 2010s. The data on the cover of algae in the East Asian Seas shows that the cover of algae has progressively decreased resulting in an average of five times more coral than algae on these reefs.
Since the marine resources are a principal source of income for the population, the downstream effects of losing these critical coastal ecosystems are enormous.
The Coral Triangle is the subject of high-level conservation efforts by the region's governments, nature conservation organizations such as World Wide Fund for Nature, The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International, and donor agencies such as the Asian Development Bank, the Global Environment Facility and USAID.
In August 2007, Indonesia's President Yudhoyono proposed a multilateral partnership to "safeguard the region’s marine and coastal biological resources" with five other countries geographically located in the CT (Malaysia, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and the Philippines). The multilateral partnership then named as Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security (CTI-CFF).
The plan of action of the CTI-CFF, is to achieve the following:
The longer-term goals of the CTI-CFF are to:
The solid-science resources management strength builds with the scientific support of the university and research institute. On 28 February - 1 March 2017, the 1st Meeting of the CTI-CFF University Partnership in Manado was held, aimed at:
The results of this meeting:
The primary criteria used to delineate the Coral Triangle were:
There is considerable overlap between the boundaries of the Coral Triangle that are based primarily on high coral biodiversity (more than 500 species), and the boundaries based on the area of greatest biodiversity for coral reef fishes.
The 2013 documentary film Journey to the South Pacific tells the story of Coral Triangle conservation against the backdrop of island life.