The Coral Triangle & sea nomads

Changing times for the world’s center of marine biodiversity and the communities who depend on and harvest the sea’s resources.

“Photojournalist James Morgan is working with WWF, and spent eight months getting to know the Bajau Laut community – who for centuries have lived at sea, but are now being encouraged to settle on land and join the monetary economy. Hear from him – and see how the Bajau are having to adapt.”

An interesting short story in pictures with audio on how the sea-harvesting techniques of the Bajau Laut community are changing from traditional diving to the use of improvised explosives and potassium cyanide – devastating vast areas of coral reefs in *the* most pristine marine ecosystem on the planet…

Full report from BBC News HERE.

Photojournalism by James Morgan

The Coral Triangle

Spanning eastern Indonesia, parts of Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste and the Solomon Islands (see the map), the Coral Triangle is the global center of marine biodiversity and one of the world’s top priorities for marine conservation.

This extraordinary expanse of ocean covers an area of 2.3 million square miles (5.7 million km2), the equivalent to half of the entire United States. It is home to over 600 reef-building coral species, or 75% of all species known to science, and more than 3,000 species of reef fish. Over 150 million people live within the Coral Triangle, of which an estimated 2.25 million fishers are dependant on marine resources for their livelihoods. Applying the latest science, The Nature Conservancy is working with a range of partners to protect the coastal and marine ecosystems of this vast area by addressing key threats, such as over-fishing, destructive fishing, and mass coral bleaching.

Source: Coral Triangle Center