Thanks to Steph from Beautiful Oceans for tweeting about this.
Australia’s Environment Minister (and former Midnight Oils frontman) Peter Garrett is traveling to the Solomon Islands to work on protection for the coral triangle – a region of incredible marine biodiversity situated to Australia’s north east.
Located adjacent to Australia’s northern waters, the Coral Triangle contains seventy five per cent of the world’s known coral species, one third of the world’s coral reef area, and more than 3,000 species of fish. Astoundingly, 240 million people are dependent on this ocean wealth for food and livelihoods.
Having traveled to the Solomon Islands twice, as well as to Vanuatu (twice) and PNG (four times), I’ve had the incredible opportunity to visit and dive the coral triangle. The diving here is amazing, and is generally matched by the spectacular above water scenery and the simple village life. I’ve also seen the impact of western life with rubbish and litter strewn about above and below water, as well as the impact of logging and overfishing!
Lets hope this results in positive action that reinforces to the people of the various nations in the coral triangle the importance of protecting their aquatic resources and resisting the short terms gains that can be made from abuse of them!