Chinese development in a remote area of the South China Sea is threatening one of Earth’s most diverse and unspoiled ecosystems. Six nations lay claim to the region, which lies within the 2.2-million-square-mile Coral Triangle.
Geopolitical conflict has led to the rise of artificial landscapes as China vies to bolster the legitimacy of its territorial claims by creating artificial islands to act as substrate for new military installations.
“One of the reasons [China is] building these islands there, and maintaining these military bases, is to establish territorial claims,” says John McManus, a professor of marine biology and ecology at the University of Miami. “In terms of international law, it’s very helpful to prove that you’ve had military control over a place when you’re trying to establish territory.”
These earthworks, concentrated in the Spratly Islands located between Vietnam and the Philippines, are drawn up from the deep by fleets of dredgers that prowl the waters towing massive metal trawlers over the ocean floor, consuming earth and coral alike. The reef sections that survive dredging are later buried under these masses of collected sand.
The Spratlys are especially important to the Coral Triangle as a larval reservoir where juvenile fish species are relatively safe from commercial fishing.
“There are cases we know of where large areas of coral were buried as a result of mine runoff, but that’s nothing compared to the amount of coral we’ve lost in the past two years,” McManus says. “We’re paving over paradise.”