The Philippines Protects Panaon Island, One of the World’s Most Climate-Resilient Coral Reefs

A new protected seascape covering more than 60,000 hectares safeguards some of the healthiest reefs left in the Coral Triangle, and offers a template other governments can follow.

The story of Philippine coral reefs over the last forty years has mostly been a story of decline. So it matters when one place bucks the trend, and it matters more when a government moves to keep it that way. The waters surrounding Panaon Island, at the southern tip of Leyte in the heart of the Coral Triangle, have been declared a Protected Seascape, placing more than 60,000 hectares of ocean under national protection. What makes the designation remarkable is not just its size. It is that Panaon is one of the rare Philippine reefs still in excellent condition, and now one of the few with the legal framework to stay that way.

The protection was formalized through Republic Act No. 12238, signed into law in 2025, and the years since have been spent turning a line on a map into working management: monitoring, a stakeholder-built management plan, and site-specific rules. It moves the Philippines meaningfully closer to its commitment to protect 30 percent of its land and waters by 2030, the target known globally as 30 by 30.

Why Panaon is scientifically special

Panaon is not simply a pretty reef. It has been globally recognized by the 50 Reefs Study, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, as part of a worldwide portfolio of reefs judged most likely to survive the impacts of climate change. These are sometimes called climate refugia or super reefs, places where conditions give coral a fighting chance as oceans warm. In a country whose reefs have been steadily declining, a 2020 Oceana-led expedition found Panaon to be a striking exception, with coral cover reaching roughly three times the national average.

Over a 21-day expedition, the survey team documented a wealth of marine life, including whale sharks, sea turtles and the endangered Philippine duck. The surrounding mangroves and seagrass beds, which support food security, buffer coastlines against storm surges and store climate-saving blue carbon, were also found to be in good condition. Alongside the abundance, though, the team recorded troubling evidence of overfishing, destructive fishing and plastic pollution, a reminder that even the healthiest reefs are not immune to pressure.

Protection built with the people who fish there

The seascape is designed to integrate conservation with the livelihoods that depend on it, rather than fencing people out. Oceana worked with local communities to gather the scientific findings and present them to the national government, and the new law requires a comprehensive management plan developed together with local stakeholders, scientists and government agencies. It also carries a site-specific provision requiring guidelines to regulate vessel speed, a direct measure to protect the large marine mammals that transit these waters.

That view from the water is the part that too often gets lost in conservation announcements. Panaon’s waters are a vital corridor for marine mammals and provide breeding and nursery grounds that let both marine life and coastal communities thrive. As Oceana’s Marine Protected Area campaign lead Nikka Oquias put it, the designation gives communities and resource managers the legal framework and resources to actually enforce protection, not just to declare it.

Why this matters beyond the Philippines

The timing is pointed. The United Nations’ third World Ocean Assessment, released on World Oceans Day in June 2026, found an ocean under severe and accelerating pressure worldwide, and singled out the value of governance that folds in local and Indigenous knowledge and secures fair access for the communities who depend on the sea. Panaon is a working example of exactly that approach, and it lands at a moment when the world badly needs proof that commitments can become action.

Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the planet, yet only about 8 percent is protected, and far less is protected effectively. Against that backdrop, Panaon Island is a small number that points in the right direction, a rare healthy reef that a government chose to defend before it was too late. Whether it holds will depend on the unglamorous work still ahead, the monitoring, the enforcement, the management plan written with the people of San Ricardo and their neighbors. For now, the Philippines has done the hard first thing. It drew the line, and it drew it around something still worth saving.

Sources and verification

Figures and quotations are drawn from Oceana’s press release, “The Philippines Protects One of the Planet’s Most Biodiverse Marine Regions” (Manila, 29 August 2025), covering the Panaon Island Protected Seascape and Republic Act No. 12238: oceana.org. The 50 Reefs Study is published in Conservation Letters. Global ocean context is from the United Nations’ third World Ocean Assessment, released 8 June 2026: woa.un.org. Photographs are from Oceana’s Panaon expedition, released for press use, credit Oceana / Danny Ocampo. SEVENSEAS Media thanks Oceana for sharing. Adapted for SEVENSEAS Media.