The Greater Indian Ocean Region encompasses some of the world’s most extensive and biodiverse tropical coastal and marine ecosystems. It has a total coast line over 140,000 km long and a sea area of nearly 4 million km2. This vast marine network of estuaries, lagoons, mangroves, coral reefs, sandy beaches, seagrasses and wetlands provide essential habitats for many rare and valuable species, as well as vital goods and services for millions of people.
Development Infrastructure
Marine and coastal ecosystems form an essential development “infrastructure”. Not only do they underpin substantial commerce and exports that benefit local, national, regional, and global economies, but the humanitarian implications of failure are even more serious. Already, many poor coastal communities are facing severe hardships because coastal resources no longer sustain their traditional or main livelihoods. The stakes are high, the issues are complex and implementing management solutions is challenging. Investing in coastal ecosystems as development infrastructure requires a long-term perspective and local, national, regional and global commitment across all sectors.
Marine and Coastal Ecosystems Under Threat
Coastal ecosystems provide a primary source of food security for millions of people, while also playing a vital environmental regulating role. They trap carbon and other minerals and convert these into essential nutrients that form the primary building blocks of a healthy and vibrant coastal resource base. They can also act as buffers against extreme weather conditions and natural disasters, thereby reducing the vulnerability of coastal communities and investments.
Many coastal ecosystems are under severe threat. High population growth, compounded by migration into coastal areas, has led to increasing demands on these resources. The situation is aggravated by uncoordinated economic development and extraction of natural resources. Not all of these pressures are local in origin. Many unsustainable demands on coastal resources arise from global trends and actions, and are driven by markets and forces outside the region. Consumer demand, conflicts of interest and weak governance has resulted in a failure to implement or enforce policies often with grave consequences for the environment and well-being of communities.
Today more than half of the coral reefs in Southeast Asia are at high risk or under serious threat and about 20 percent are damaged beyond repair. In several Asian countries mangrove loss has exceeded 60 percent. Globally, mangroves provide more than 10 percent of the essential dissolved organic carbon that is supplied to the ocean from land, yet less than one percent of the world’s mangroves are adequately protected. Seagrasses, an indispensable nursery ground for fish, have also declined alarmingly and even disappeared in some parts of the Indian Ocean. Climate change compounds these impacts and exacerbates the existing environmental problems. Sea level rise, increased storm frequency and coral bleaching, are already being witnessed across the region as some of the evident effects of climate change.
