South East Asian leaders signed recently the CTI Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security (CTI-CFF) aimed “to address threats to the marine, coastal, and small island ecosystems within the Coral Triangle region through accelerated and collaborative action, taking into consideration multi-stakeholder participation in all of our six countries.”
The Coral Triangle is known to hold 75 percent of all aquatic species of the world. It is located in the waters of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor Leste. If anything were to happen to that area, the world’s fish supply would be greatly threatened. Corals reefs are known to be breeding grounds for fishes. The most common way of protecting them is to limit access to them. Sort of a like a wild life reserve on water.
Signatories of the accord were Malaysia Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Michael Somare, Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Derek Sikua, Democratic Republic of Timor Leste President Jose Ramos Horta and Philippine President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
The leaders also agreed to adopt the CTI Regional Plan of Action, which is a “a living and non-legally binding document” – in an effort to conserve and sustainably manage coastal and marine resources within the CT region while taking into consideration the laws and policies of each country.
It has to be pointed out however that the countries agreed that it is “a voluntary cooperation and without prejudice to the sovereignty, territorial integrity, sovereign rights of the six countries respectively over their marine resources, and the position of each state on the on-going and future negotiation on delimitation of maritime boundaries between the countries.”
Also that cooperation “shall be subject to the laws, regulation, national policies and priorities of the respective countries; and subject to the application of relevant sustainable development principles to trans-boundary management, conservation and development within the CT region.
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Category: Environment
