The six countries of the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security (CTI-CFF) – Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste – committed to and began implementing a plan to rapidly increase the social and economic resilience of the region’s coastal communities to climate change risks.
The CTI Region-wide Early Action Plan for Climate Change Adaptation (REAP-CCA) for Nearshore Marine and Coastal Environment and Small Island Ecosystems was launched at the 7th Coral Triangle Initiative Senior Officials Meeting and 3rd Coral Triangle Initiative Ministerial Meetings held in Jakarta from October 25-28, 2011. It aims to address existing and imminent threats to the Coral Triangle’s reefs, of which up to 90% in some areas are considered at risk because of unsustainable fisheries and climate change.
The REAP-CCA, developed with support from the US CTI Support Program, prioritizes immediate actions that governments and communities can implement to reduce the impacts of climate variability and to ensure resiliency of the Coral Triangle’s coastal and marine resources that 120 million people depend upon for food security and livelihoods. Some of its key actions includes studying vulnerabilities, potential impacts, and risks of climate change on coastal zones and small islands; mainstreaming early warning systems for vulnerable coastal settlements as a result of impacts of climate change; and identifying possible financing mechanisms to support implementation of early actions.
