DENR Pushes More Actions to Save Reef

● The Coral Triangle is facing threats to its ecosystem such as overfishing, pollution and climate-change impacts, DENR says.

Amid the growing threats of overfishing, pollution and climate change impacts, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)-7 is moving for more concerted actions to save the coral reef in the region also known as the Coral Triangle.

DENR-7 Regional Director Dr. Isabelo R. Montejo said Environment Secretary Ramon JP Paje has indicated that while the Philippines had already taken important steps to protect its own reefs and the marine life they host, there are more things to be done in developing sustainable solutions for the threatened reefs in the Coral Triangle, a global hotspot of marine biodiversity.

The Philippines, being the apex of the Coral Triangle, is a partner-nation of a Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security (CTI-CFF).

The triangle covers the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) in Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and
Timor-Leste.

Montejo said that CTI-CFF is a multilateral cooperation among six member-countries to safeguard the Coral Triangle, which is home to more than one-third of the world’s coral reefs, including over 600 different species of reef-building coral and 3,000 species of reef fish.

Montejo added these coral ecosystems provide food and income to more than 100 million people working in marine- based industries throughout the region.

He explained that at the apex of the Coral Triangle or the world center of marine biodiversity is the Philippines.

“We are one of the 18 mega-diverse countries that contain 75 percent of the global biodiversity. And yet we too are one of the hottest of the marine biodiversity hotspots in the world”, Montejo said.

He added that factors, such as climate change and ocean acidification, increases the number of threatened reefs to 90 percent.