Coral Triangle

Coral Triangle

Subject: Environment

Section: Biodiversity

Context:As per a study, the impact of global temperatures exceeding 2°C for around 60 years between 2040 and 2100 would affect over 30,000 species that live on land and in the sea.

Concept:

Coral Triangle

• The Coral Triangle is a marine area located in the western Pacific Ocean.
• It includes the waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Solomon Islands.
• Named for its staggering number of corals,Seventy-five percent of the world’s coral species are found here—nearly 600 different species of reef-building corals alone.
• The region nurtures six of the world’s seven marine turtle species, mangrove forests and more than 2000 species of reef fish.
• Other species include: Whales, Tuna, Dugong, Hump head wrasse, Dolphins, Porpoises.
• The Coral Triangle also supports large populations of commercially important tuna, fuelling a multi-billion-dollar global tuna industry.
• Over 120 million people live in the Coral Triangle and rely on its coral reefs for food, income and protection from storms.
• There are over 2,000 languages spoken across these waters and cultures share a strong connection to the sea.

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: such as 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.

To know about Coral Reefs, refer: https://optimizeias.com/coral-reefs-3/