Throughout the waters of the Coral Triangle, there are many current and emerging threats to deep-water habitats and species including:

• Increasing fishing pressure targeting seamounts and upwelling zones
• Over-exploitation of oceanic marine life and their prey species
• Fisheries interactions like net entanglement and by-catch
• Accidental ingestion and uptake of marine debris (plastic waste) concentrated in areas of increased ocean productivity and therefore important habitats for oceanic marine life
• Ship strikes for large cetaceans and whale sharks
• Acoustic habitat degradation from ocean noise like shipping, seismic surveys, offshore energy & deep-sea mining
• Climate change

There is now pressing need for improved management and conservation of these sensitive marine habitats and species. However, their needs are currently under-represented in most marine planning initiatives in all member states of the Coral Triangle, and there are many areas that are deficient in the data needed to build these conservation management plans.