The Coral Triangle Initiative For Saving The Livelihoods

On Thursday, 14 May 2009, evening, the leadership of the Indonesian President, H.E. Dr. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the highly promoted World Ocean Conference (WOC) finally adopted the Manado Ocean Declaration (MOD). He sent a loud and clear signal from the ocean community to the world of the need to protect our oceans and the coastlines.

The six countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Timor Leste have come to recognize that the newly created "Coral Triangle" is the very heart of marine life abundance and marine life diversity on this planet.

The peoples of the Coral Triangle, that depend every day on these resources for their livelihood, have to fight against poverty. But the war against poverty cannot be won, unless the marine and coastal resources are wisely managed, which are being wasted by overfishing, destructive fishing practices, pollution, and climate change.

A comprehensive "Regional Plan of Action" to reverse these problems was developed by the six above mentioned countries. During the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) Summit the leaders of these countries signed a Leaders' Declaration in order to launch the Coral Triangle Initiative and commit themselves to its vigorous implementation.

Furthermore, the Government of Indonesia is offering to host a permanent and financed CTI Secretariat in Indonesia to support the implementation of the CTI Regional Plan of Action. Indonesia is also ready to pledge 5 million US dollars for the CTI program.

At the inaugural World Ocean Conference (WOC), also, representatives from 76 countries agreed to push ocean issues as an agenda at the United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen in December.

"We reiterate the importance of achieving an effective outcome at the Conference of Parties (COP)-15 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen, and invite parties to consider how the coastal and ocean dimension could be appropriately reflected in their decisions," the Manado Ocean Declaration (MOD) read.

I think that such an agreement would be important for Indonesia because rising sea levels, triggered by global warming, were threatening small islands with a poor capacity to deal with climate change.