Brief profile of Philippines’ marine biodiversityAnemone fish is just one of the country’s 1,755 reef- associated fish spciesPhoto By Aj Villar• In the Philippines there are “468 scleractinian corals, 1,755 reef-associated fishes, 648 species of mollusks, 19 species of seagrass and 820 species of algae (Fishbase 2008, BFAR-NFRDI-PAWB, 2005)”• “Fishbase records indicate that the country harbors about 3,212 fish species (list still incomplete), 731 of which are considered commercially important”• The Philippines has the second highest seagrass diversity in the world, second only to Australia.Because of the country’s marine biodiversity richness, conservationists have advocated it as a special focus of marine conservation efforts. Threats to Philippine marine biodiversity have been grouped into five major categories: chemical pollution and eutrophication, fisheries operations, habitat alteration, invasion of alien species and global climate change. Primary threats are habitat loss mostly due to destructive human activities such as mining, logging and hazardous and solid waste disposal.For its part, Haribon has led the identification of major conservation problems in marine biodiversity. Currently, through the “Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered Coral Project,” it is also conducting research to determine the status of species, and just recently concluded some conservation work in Burdeos, Quezon.
