Melinda Chickering
Source: Associated Press
May 15, 2009

Manado, Indonesia - Six Asia-Pacific countries agreed Friday on a wide-ranging plan to protect one of the world's largest networks of coral reefs, promising to reduce pollution, eliminate overfishing and improve the livelihoods of impoverished coastal communities.

The agreement at the World Oceans Conference creates a voluntary management plan for an area defined as the Coral Triangle, which spans Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and East Timor. It accounts for a third of the world's coral reefs and 35 percent of coral reef fish species.

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