Status of South East Asian Coral Reefs

This is a broad subject that I am currently researching further. However this graph, is useful pictorially about what has been happening to Coral Reefs throughout South East Asia.

Source : GCRMN

Original found here

The longer the blue lines, the better and the shorter the brown line the better. I am not exactly sure of the methodology taken on this survey but my take on what this is showing is that between 1994 and 2004:

1. Indonesia has shown an improvement, critically the only country to show a decrease in the amount of coral reefs with less that 25% live coral cover (LCC)
2. Malaysia has also shown an improvement, but only in the >75% LCC category.
3. Vietnam has the biggest decline in LCC. Their reefs look in critical trouble.
4. Myanmar's reefs look the healthiest. But no indicator of the status in 1994. Also should be noted that Myanmar has no GCRMN co-ordinator.
5. Philippines has also seen a significant decline in this ten year period, especially with regards to the less than 25% LCC category.

The biggest risks to the reefs were listed as overfishing and destructive fishing.

This survey does not indicate the total area of reef coverage in those perspective countries.

More on this topic later.