The Western Pacific region, the home of many developing countries and the small island developing states, has well developed coral reefs with the highest marine biodiversity in the world. Yet, the marine organisms in the coral reefs are not fully investigated. It is considered that many more species still remain to be identified in the region. Protection and sustainable use of the marine biological resources is important for livelihood of the people living in the countries of the region. To conduct an ecosystem-based conservation, it is important to obtain baseline information on the extent of the current biodiversity and its dynamics. This commitment aims to build the national and regional capacity for species identification with the genetic method DNA Barcoding, and to make an inventory of the marine organisms living in the coral reefs with information on the regional level distribution pattern. In addition, monitoring the recruitment of the larvae and fries into the coral reefs will be carried out in order to understand the life cycle of each coral reef species and the dynamics of the reef ecosystem.
This commitment will be implemented in partnership among Korea institute of Ocean Science and Technology, and several research institutions in the Western Pacific developing countries. Each institution is encouraged to build the marine biodiversity database for its own country and to share the information among the partnership institutions as well as the regional community. Regional and national training workshops will be held regularly for capacity development. Through this commitment, a regional network of marine biodiversity conservation will be established with improved capacity for species identification and genetic analysis, a portal site of marine biodiversity linking national inventories of coral reef organisms is built, and an illustrated marine biodiversity book for the Western Pacific with DNA barcode will be published.

Progress reports

December 2019

A portal site of marine biodiversity in the Western Pacific region

May 2020

An illustrated, DNA barcoded marine biodiversity book for the Western Pacific

Other, please specify

approximately 300,000 USD in-direct support for database building and capacity development