Using coral and reef fish diversity as two primary criteria, scientists defined boundaries of this region to include most of the exclusive economic zones of these partner countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste (the ‘CT6’).

[1] Covering 1.62% of the planet's total Ocean area, there is broad scientific consensus that the CT represents the global epicenter of marine life abundance and diversity.

The natural productivity of the region makes it unique for its wildlife plus marine and coastal Ecosystems enhancing derived human lifestyle benefits for both local communities and governments.

As a source of vital food, income and viable protection from severe weather events, the sustainable health of these ecosystems is critical.

[5][6] The current status of the resources across this region plus future projections, remains of great concern, although data shows the reefs of the Coral Triangle hves showm resilience to large scale bleaching events.

Through the CTI-CFF, the Coral Triangle countries have agreed to support people-centered biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, poverty reduction and equitable benefit sharing.

The CTI-CFF also seeks to address both poverty reduction through economic development, food security, sustainable livelihoods for coastal communities and biodiversity conservation through the protection of species, habitats and ecosystems.

[15] The case study provided in the CTI-CFF Seascape General Model (2017) is the Sulu-Sulawesi Marine Ecoregion (SSME) is a semi-enclosed large marine ecosystem that encompasses Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines that was established following the ecoregion approach – the terminology used by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to mean large areas for a representation approach to conserving biodiversity.

In 2022 the follow-on Regional Plan of Action was published as RPOA 2.0, which set 2 goals (as well as objectives, targets, activities and expected outcomes).