The South China Sea has one of the richest marine biodiversity in the world, but according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, competing territorial claims and neglect are threatening its ecosystem.
According to the report titled “Deep Blue Scars: Environmental Threats to the South China Sea,” increased fishing, dredging, landfill, and giant clam harvesting have taken a “devastating toll,” especially on the biodiversity’s main foundation – coral reefs.
The report stressed that coral reefs, often described as the “rainforests of the sea,” are “considered one of the most vital ecosystems in the SCS, providing food and shelter to thousands of species in their surrounding environment.”
The International Society of Reef Studies noted the “critical ecological importance” of the SCS, as it is leaning on the western border of the Coral Triangle, a region with highly rich marine biodiversity. With close to 600 identified species of corals, it said, “the SCS rivals the Coral Triangle in coral diversity,” and is “home to a plethora of marine life of both ecological and commercial value, including many species on the IUCN Red List.
The SCS, which has an area of 3.5 million square kilometers, has become a “theater of current strategic power competition,” especially with competing claims from the countries of the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, and most notably, China.
According to data from CSIS, out of all the reef features in SCS, 27 are already occupied by China, 18 by Vietnam, 9 by the Philippines, 5 by Malaysia, and one by Taiwan. However, this doesn’t mean that the unoccupied features are spared from damage, as “claimants have been engaged in dredging and landfill across the region, destroy[ing] vast areas of the SCS’ coral reef ecosystems over the last 10 years.”
The harvesting of giant clams for their remarkable shells have taken a devastating, even greater toll on the coral reefs of the SCS.
According to CSIS data, China, over the years, has “destroyed or severely damaged” about 8,500 ha of coral reefs in the SCS through “island expansion and giant clam harvesting. Beijing, of course, has consistently dismissed such findings, proclaiming that it has always been for biodiversity protection.
Reefs within the West Philippine Sea that China has been greedily occupying by building structures, have not been spared from the destruction.
Destruction of coral reefs and biodiversity at such a scale should be a crime against humanity, considering how such selfish and shortsighted behavior can take from future generations. The problem with this ongoing crime is that nobody can seem to do anything about it. For now, the best Filipinos can do is document the crimes so those responsible can be held to account when the time of reckoning does come.*
