The Western Pacific and its adjacent areas is the most densely populated region with the richest level of marine biodiversity and endemism in the world. The region is home to more than 75 percent of all known coral species, 50 percent of the world’s coral reefs, and at least 3,000 fish species. People and countries have been relying directly on ocean for food, and job opportunities. For instance, Most Southeast Asian coastal communities are socially and economically dependent upon coral reef ecosystems with an estimated 70-90% of fish caught dependent on coral reefs. Ocean acidification poses a great threat to the ocean sustainability, livelihoods, well-being and prosperity of all.

Despite the global increasing recognition on ocean acidification and its threat to ocean-based food security, the awareness still remains rather limited and the ecosystem responses to ocean acidification are poorly understood in the region. To enable resource and fisheries managers, and policy makers to develop effective long-term mitigation and adaptation strategies, sustained research, monitoring and assessment are critically needed to develop meaningful projections on future impacts of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems in the region.

To this end, the IOC Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific (WESTPAC) seeks to support our member states in the region preparing for and responding to ocean acidification, by improving research capacity, transferring marine technology, and advancing our understanding on ocean acidification and its impacts on ocean ecosystems.

The Sub-Commission initiated the establishment of a sustained research and monitoring network on ocean acidification, by conducting a dedicated session to ocean acidification at the 9th WESTPAC International Marine Science Conference (April 2014, Nha Trang, Vietnam). Subsequently the ocean acidification programme was officially established as an official programme of the Sub-Commission at its 10th Intergovernmental Session (WESTPAC- X, May 2015, Phuket Thailand). Since then, the Sub-Commission has been driving and coordinating the development of in the Western Pacific and its adjacent regions, which was later recognized as one regional component of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON).

Our current efforts focus on developing a programme to monitor the impacts of ocean acidification on coral reef ecosystems. This programme has been developed since early 2015, mainly through the ff: