· Indonesia has more that 50,000 square kilometers of coral reefs, which is more than any other nation on earth.
· Indonesia is home to 600 of the almost 800 reef-building coral species in the world.
· Eastern Indonesia has 480 species of hard corals, approximately 60 percent of the world’s hard coral species.
· Eastern Indonesia has the greatest diversity of coral reef fish in the world, with more than 1,650 species.
· One can often find a greater diversity of marine species surrounding a single island in Indonesia than exists in all the coral reefs in the Caribbean!
Unfortunately, more than 80% of Indonesia’s reefs are assessed as threatened or “at risk,” largely from over-exploitation and global climate change, as reported in Reefs at Risk: Southeast Asia, a publication of the World Resources Institute. They are also seriously threatened by the increased acidification of the world's oceans, as a result of the dissolution into seawater of a net two billion tons of carbon dioxide each year. For more on this sad truth, see this website, under the "Raja Ampat" Gallery.
Anemonefish 2884
Batfish 2889
Mating Mandarinfish 2547
Mating Mandarinfish 2553
Eel, with cleaner shrimp cleaning its teeth 1795
Eel 2109
Eel 2211
Eel 2701
Eel 1678
Flamboyant Cuttlefish 2739
Frogfish 2038
Pair of Harlequin Shrimp 2436
Coral Grouper 2729
Lionfish, with pink parasitic Isopod on lower lip 2375