Governments turn focus to ‘Coral Triangle’

By John Aglionby in Manado
Published: May 17 2009 08:16

The dark brown sponge nestling about four metres underwater in a glorious coral garden in the Bunaken marine national park off the northern tip of Indonesia’s Sulawesi island looked remarkably ordinary.
But Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a marine biologist at the University of Queensland, became extremely excited when he saw it. “That sponge [species] is about a billion years old,” he said, dipping his head down to take another look. “It was around before there was oxygen on earth. That’s the sort of thing this project is all about.”
“This project” is the Coral Triangle Initiative, an unprecedented collaboration between six nations in the 5.7m square kilometre region: Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands and East Timor.
Environmentalists say the importance of the Coral Triangle, dubbed the cradle of marine evolution, cannot be overstated. Covering only 2 per cent of the world’s oceans, it is home to 75 per cent of its corals and more than 35 per cent of its reef fish.
They say the impact of failing to protect the region, including not tackling climate change decisively, would be felt globally since the Coral Triangle is the genetic source for numerous fish species that live around the world.
“There is nowhere like this on earth,” Mr Hoegh-Guldberg said. “If you were going to protect only one place on planet ocean, this would be it.”
The governments appear to have got the message, thanks to environmental groups WWF, Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy putting aside their usual rivalries to cooperate on the CTI.
That was demonstrated on Friday when the nations’ leaders met for a half-day summit in Manado to formally launch the scheme.
“Leaders don’t gather for low-priority issues,” said Lawrence Greenwood, Asian Development Bank vice president. “This is very much a high-priority issue.”
Peter Seligmann, Conservation International’s chairman and chief executive, appeared almost in a dream at the summit. “I’ve been in conservation for 30 years and I’ve never seen a movement like this,” he said. “It’s recognition that the environment is not a nature issue, it’s a human issue.”
Mr Greenwood said more than $350m has been pledged from around the world to the CTI.
Susilo Bambamg Yudhoyono, Indonesian president, said in his summit opening remarks the CTI’s main priorities would be combating overfishing, destructive fishing, coastal degradation, pollution and climate change.
“Let us take care of the oceans so they take care of us,” he said.
Some 120m people live in the Coral Triangle, with many of them eking out a subsistence livelihood. More than half would be significantly affected by either a sea level rise of half a metre or a continue depletion of fish stocks at current rates.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009