Coral Triangle could be last bastion for planet's beleaguered reefs

Johnny Langenheim The Guardian 27 Nov 14;
Major reef system in south-east Asia could be unusually resilient to climate change, Catlin Seaview Survey suggests

If humans are driving earth’s sixth great extinction event, coral reefs will be one of the first and most visible ecosystems to succumb. Scientists estimate that by 2050, the ocean could be largely devoid of reefs as climate change and our relentless plundering of the sea set in motion geological changes not seen for millions of years.

But according to the Catlin Seaview Survey, a multi-year project to map the world’s coral reefs, there may be evidence that certain reefs in the Coral Triangle could resist longer than others. The project is using cutting-edge camera technology and a big-data approach to establish baselines for key indicators like health, diversity, decline and resilience.

The sponsor, Catlin, is an international insurance company specialising in property and casualty insurance. It says insurers should take a lead role in improving understanding of the potential for changes to the environment.

“Studying coral reefs provides a better understanding of short-term risks on a local scale,” says Catlin Insurance Group chief executive, Stephen Catlin. “But, more importantly, [it] gives us better information about the long-term risks of climate change on a global scale. As insurers, we need to be ahead of the game.”

Coral reefs represent just 1% of our oceans but support 25% of the species that live in them. This makes south-east Asia’s Coral Triangle bioregion the global epicentre of marine biodiversity on the planet, with 75% of all known coral building species, 6 out of 7 of the world’s turtle species and more than 3,000 species of fish. 120 million people depend on these reefs for their livelihoods – if they disappeared, the attendant loss of food security would drive economic migration on a massive scale.

Over the last few months, Catlin Seaview Survey scientists have been assessing reefs in hotspots throughout the Coral Triangle, which encompasses the territorial waters of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Timor Leste. They believe the bioregion could become one of the last refuges on earth for coral reefs.