Exploring the Coral Triangle, the Amazon of the Ocean As one of the most important reef systems in the world, the Coral Triangle, covers 132,636 km across six countries; Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. It occupies just 1.5% of the world's total ocean area, but represents a full 30 percent of the world's coral and fishes in the world. In fact, when it comes to biodiversity, it is like nowhere else in the world. More than 75 percent of the world’s coral species–over 600 species– which is ten times the number in the Caribbean Sea, live in the Triangle, fifteen of are endemic to the region, means they are not found anywhere else. But the coral is only the start of the diversity in this living system. Of the 6,000 currently known species of reef fish, 37 percent of the world’s coral reef fish live in parts of the Triangle. Two hundred and thirty-five of those species are found nowhere else. It is also a home to six out of the world’s seven marine turtles. So do aquatic mammals like blue whales, sperm whales and dolphins and endangered species like dugongs. If coral reefs are the rainforests of the seas, then the Coral Triangle is the underwater equivalent of the Amazon. Just as the Amazon is the figurehead of the world’s rainforests – the so-called lungs of the earth – the Coral Triangle is developing iconic status as a marine treasure –
the wellspring of the world’s oceans. That’s why the bioregion is quickly gaining a global profile as one of the planet’s most valuable natural assets, comparable to the Amazon. But, like most coral reefs around the world, the Coral Triangle is under threat. The reef is coming under pressure from multiple angles. Ille-
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