South-east Asia (SEA) consists of 10 different countries.

Of all the coral reefs in the world, 34% is located in South-east Asia. Therefore, this largest area of coral reef is considered as the global centre of the tropical marine biodiversity. We can observe this extreme biodiversity by the fact that there live more than 1300 fish species and 600 coral species in this area, together 25% of all known species live in Southeast Asia. In 1998 the World Resources Institute start the ‘global reefs at risk project’ to gather information about the developing Coral reefs to understand the consequences of the threats and to map the worldwide status of the reefs. This report concluded in 2002 that the SEA coral reefs are the most threatened in the world.

I will briefly go in more detail about the status of the Coral reefs in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Those countries consits of high biodiversity and large area reefs.

Indonesia:

Indonesia consists of 13.500 islands and 16% of the coral reefs in the world are located in this country making it the second large reef area in the world. Since monitoring the coral reef status from 2003, the amount of healthy coral is declining, especially the hard coral is the most affected. In 2010 the sea water temperature was unusually high, this event causes a mass bleaching which affected a large area of the coral reefs. As a result the government introduced Marine Protected Areas and National parks to protect their coral reefs.

Malaysia:

Malaysia is made up of 13 states and their coral reefs cover nearly 3000 km^2. Due to high nutrient levels caused by coastal urbanization, the rapidly growing tourism industry and intense agriculture, there are higher loads of algae measured. Moreover, as a result of the warming sea event in 2010 Coral bleaching occurred in many places. The Marine Park department decided therefore to close 12 dive sites for a couple of months, to help the bleaching areas to recover.

Philippines:

The Philippines consist of more than 33000 km coastline. Compared to the other countries of SEA the Philippines coral reefs are comprehensively studied since 1970. Those analysis show a progressive decline in the health condition of the coral reefs. More research is needed to understand the causes of the downturn. In total 7% of the coral reefs of the Philippines are located in MPAs. A positive result show that the stable Coral reefs are most often found within those areas.