Philippines' illegal fishing, construction activities damage coral reef ecosystem: survey

The Philippines' illegal fishing and construction activities have been damaging the coral reef ecosystem in the South China Sea, according to the newly-released survery report from China's Ministry of Natural Resources.

Titled "A Survey Report on the Coral Reef Ecosystems of Tiexian Jiao and Niu'e Jiao," the document was released on Friday and produced by the South China Sea Development Research Institute of the Ministry of Natural Resources together with other research institutions.

China's Natural Resources Ministry carried out the field investigation from April to August last year. Tiexian Jiao and Niu'e Jiao, revealing that the coral reef ecosystem in Tiexian Jiao has degraded severely, and the condition of Niu'e Jiao remains healthy.

Chinese scientists found that the coral reef ecosystem in Tiexian Jiao has degraded severely, with the reef-building coral coverage decreasing by nearly 70 percent from 2016 to 2024.

Affected by the outbreak of crown-of-thorns starfish, the coral reef ecosystem of Tiexian Jiao has degraded severely, the report said, adding that from 2016 to 2024, the reef-building coral coverage area at the atoll reef platform where Tiexian Jiao is located decreased by about 68.9 percent.

The document noted that tropical cyclone strikes and frequent human activities, especially the Philippines' continuous and illegal construction on Zhongye Dao are also causes of the deterioration of the coral reef ecosystem of Tiexian Jiao.

"We found discarded fishing nets and wires in the waters near Tiexian Jiao, some marked with Filipino language, some marked 'made in Philippines'. Satellite imagery from 2016 to 2024 also shows that coral coverage in a 2.5-kilometer radius west of Zhongye Island has dropped by 81.8 percent, an even steeper decline than on the Tiexian Jiao side," said Wei Zheng, expert of the South China Sea Development Research Institute.

According to the report, satellite remote sensing and on-site survey data showed that the three cays on Tiexian Jiao reef flat and the one cay on Niu'e Jiao reef flat are all above water at high tide, with apparent natural characteristics, regular changes of position and form, and sufficient materials fostering their growth and formation.

"The Nansha Islands had high coverage of branching reef-building corals. Branching corals are known for their rapid growth but are easily damaged by external forces. In the Nansha Islands, hydrodynamic activity causes broken and dead coral fragments to accumulate, providing abundant material for the formation and development of islands, reefs, and sandbanks," said Cao Yonggang, expert of the South China Sea Survey Center.

Philippines' illegal fishing, construction activities damage coral reef ecosystem: survey

As the U.S. national debt reaches an all-time high, surging interest payments consume a massive share of federal revenue, forcing the government to dedicate more resources to servicing past debt and threatening to crowd out critical public investments, said an American professor of finance and macroeconomics.

The U.S. federal government on Tuesday saw its total public debt topping 40 trillion U.S. dollars, according to a Treasury Department report issued on Wednesday. That means just paying the interest costs American taxpayers more than a trillion dollars a year, making it the government's second biggest expense after the Social Security retirement program.

Based on the current data, the U.S. national debt will nearly double in the next ten years.

Phillip Braun, clinical professor of finance at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, said such a large dept stops being an alarming number but becomes an actual economic crisis.

"I think the United States is at that point now based on what happened in the bond market last week. And the government is having that harder and harder time being able to sell this debt. People view it as becoming more risky across time. And so they demand higher yields on the bonds that the U.S. government issues. And so this is a very strong upper pressure on long-term interest rates, 10/20/30-year U.S. Treasury bonds," he said in an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN).

Rising bond yields translate into higher borrowing costs across mortgages, auto loans, and corporate debt, with ripple effects that touch every American household. Braun laid out the arithmetic in stark terms.

"The debt is so large, the interest payments the U.S. government has to make in the debt, that's quite considerable and it constitutes around 20 percent of the budget currently. So we're around 1.2 trillion dollars. That's the paying interest this year. And so that's going to crowd out other government expenditures. And, with the Republicans in office, it's going to crowd out the social programs and things like that. So, it's not a good situation," he said.

Rising interest costs on national debt to crowd out U.S. social programs: expert