Seagrass in Southeast Asia: a review of status and knowledge gaps, and a road map for conservation

Southeast Asia is a biologically, culturally, and ethnically diverse region, made up of 14 countries, many of which are archipelagic states (Tangsubkul 1984). The region as a whole has seen a rapid population expansion of nearly six-fold between 1900 and 2000 (Jones 2013). The current pop-ulation stands at approximately 622 million people, with most of the population concentrated in coastal capital cities (Figure 1). The region is also a global biodiversity hotspot, with high numbers of endemic species in both the marine and terrestrial environments (Sodhi et al. 2010, Tittensor et al. 2010). The cost of rapid population expansion and eco-nomic development in the region has resulted in devastat-ing losses in terms of biodiversity on land (Sodhi et al. 2004), with similar impacts on marine biodiversity, although the true extent of this is still likely not fully realised, given the paucity of information from this region (Chou 2014).