Coral Triangle

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About Coral Triangle:

The Coral Triangle, often referred to as the ‘Amazon of the seas’, is a huge marine area spanning over 10 million square kilometres.
It includes countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, and the Solomon Islands.
Significance: This region is home to 76 per cent of the world’s coral species and supports more than 120 million people who rely on its resources for their livelihoods.
Threats: Unsustainable fishing practices, pollution from coastal development, and climate change-induced coral bleaching pose significant risks to the health and resilience of these ecosystems.

What are Corals?

Corals are essentially animals, which are sessile, meaning they permanently attach themselves to the ocean floor.
Corals share a symbiotic relationship with single-celled algae called zooxanthellae.
The algae provide the coral with food and nutrients, which they make through photosynthesis, using the sun’s light.
They use their tiny tentacle-like hands to catch food from the water and sweep into their mouth.
Each individual coral animal is known as a polyp and it lives in groups of hundreds to thousands of genetically identical polyps that form a ‘colony’.