Food security at risk in coral countries
'We need to focus more on how you create – and pay for – alternative livelihoods for people who could lose out when fisheries are closed or scaled back." Image: datanaso/iStockphoto Safeguarding food security in the Coral Triangle, the region embracing six nations and 350 million people to Australia’s north, is a key focus at an international meeting in Cairns.The meeting of the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) countries, hosted by the Asian Development Bank and Australia, reports on the progress of an international effort to protect the world epicenter of marine biodiversity and the food that it supplies to the region.The six nations of the Coral Triangle – Indonesia, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and Malaysia – meet amid warnings that seafood supplies for the region’s growing population could become critical if the balance between commercial fishing, conservation and the needs of local fishers is not managed...