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The world's most diverse marine region is under serious threat
and needs urgent protection, according to environment watchdogs.
The Coral
Triangle - a 2.1 million-square-mile stretch of ocean
straddling six countries - contains 75% of the world's coral
species, a third of the Earth's coral reefs and more than
3,000 species of fish.
Over-exploitation, environmental degradation, a population
boom and climate change are all threatening the area, environmentalists
said and businesses need to map out a strategy to save the
Coral Triangle, which provides livelihoods for more than 120
million people.
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said companies
could profit while protecting the area. "As saving the world
from fossil fuels can be profitable, so also can saving the
Coral Triangle be profitable," she told a two-day conference
of Asia-Pacific business leaders.
Lida Pet Soede, head of the Coral Triangle Programme, said
the conference aims to involve the private sector in reducing
their negative footprint on the environment. "It is really
about companies changing the way they do business in order
for them, of course, to have a sustained profitability - but
also to sustain the livelihood of more than 100 million people,"
she said.
"If the private sector becomes part of sustainability, that
impact is potentially much larger than the amount of funding
that can be mobilised for more conventional conservation."
About 100 people protested outside the conference, saying
it would only benefit big business at the expense of poor
fishing communities. Demonstrators from the Peasants Movement,
a fishermen's federation, carried a boat and placards that
read - 'Our seas and corals are not for sale'.
Six Asia-Pacific nations straddle the Coral Triangle - Indonesia,
Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands
and East Timor.
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