'Coral triangle' under the microscope

The oceans are a classic problem of the global commons. In her book Seasick: the hidden ecological crisis of the global ocean Alanna Mitchell said that in fact no-one is in charge. There is no peak body charged with the oversight of the world’s oceans. As perhaps a step towards that Indonesia is hosting this week the inaugural World Ocean Conference with participants from 120 nations.

At the margins of the conference leaders from six countries – East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and the Solomon Islands – will meet to launch a plan to save the ‘coral triangle’, a vast reef ecosystem stretching from Indonesia in the west to Solomon Islands in the east and the Philippines in the north. Covering an area half that of the United States, the coral triangle is one of the most biologically diverse marine regions in the world. More than three-quarters of the world’s reef-building coral species and a third of the world’s coral reef fish can be found within the waters.

The WWF has commissioned a report on the future of the area to be launched at the meeting prepared by Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Director of the Centre for Marine Studies at the University of Queensland. The news, as you might imagine, is not good.

So far I can’t find the actual report, but there are numerous stories in the world media in addition to the ABC link above, for example from The Philippines, from the the BBC and on Professor Hoegh-Guldberg’s own blog.

Alanna Mitchell says that when fisheries are exploited industrially they typically degrade rapidly. For example, 60% of “large fish with fins, sharks and skates” were taken from the Gulf of Thailand in the first five years of industrial fishing. In the narrow shelf of South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean, fish stocks were depleted in the first two years.

On average, she says, 80% of the populations of fish vanish within 15 years of the start of industrial fishing activity. What happens then is that scientists are brought in to help manage an already severely degraded resource. This laeves little margin for error.

The pattern in the coral triangle is similar if less severe. It seems that in the last 40 years 40% of the coral reefs and mangroves have already been lost. It is possible that the reefs will effectively be dead by the end of the century. Some 100 million people depend on the coral triangle for a livelihood.

What to do?

Climate change mitigation has to be an essential part, with Hoegh-Guldberg saying an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 is the way to go. The news report from The Philippines mentions aid from the USA:

The US government is providing US$40 million in funding for a five-year programme in the Coral Triangle to improve management of marine and coastal resources

It also mentions a series of laws passed by the Filipino Congress to clean up the environment. Other than that the reports focus on the scary stuff, including the security threat of millions on the move if their environment can no longer support them.

Mitchell reports that some Caribbean reefs have been pretty much trashed. It is touch and go whether they will return to health. On the other hand she describes the Great Barrier Reef ad the “last best place on earth” and the very model of modern reef management.

We can only hope that an effective plan will come out of the meeting on the coral triangle, and a realistic recommendation for an institutional form to oversee the oceans in general from the main conference.