Philippines - Visayas

Spalding et al. (2001) describe the Visayas as a close-set group of islands, among them Panay, Negros, Cebu, Bohol, Leyte, and Samar, arranged around the Visayan Sea, which exceeds 200 m in depth in places. Fringing reefs line much of the Visayan coast, broken by soft sediment near river mouths, and on some reefs live cover was above 50%. Fish diversity was high where reefs were protected or lightly fished, and the small reserves at Apo Island and Sumilon, off Negros and Cebu, are cited as globally recognized models of community-based management: tiny no-take zones, enforced for years, raised fish numbers and sizes, and lifted yields in surrounding waters, and from 1999 both islands collected fees from visiting dive boats. Against this, Toledo City on Cebu was discharging an estimated 100,000 tons of mine tailings a day, with heavy losses of fish and coral along 7 km of coast. Their protected-area list includes the Apo Island Protected Landscape/Seascape (6.91 km², 1996), the Panglao Island-Balicasag reserve (1978), and Moalboal/Pescador. Nationally, they estimate 25,060 km² of reef, with 421 coral species recorded and 577 estimated.

By 2004, according to Wilkinson (2006), reef decline was continuing in the Philippines, driven by overfishing and destructive fishing, pollution and sediment running off the land, and reclamation. The same review judged only 10-20% of Southeast Asia's more than 630 marine protected areas to be effectively managed, which makes enforced reserves like Apo and Sumilon the exception. Souter et al. (2021) estimate that hard coral cover across the East Asian Seas dropped to 35% by 2012 after the 2010 mass bleaching and to 33.9% in 2017 after the 2016 event, before recovering to about 37% in 2019, and they flag marine plastic litter as an emerging threat in a region that may generate up to half of the world's supply.

The seven Visayas sites cover recreational dives made in February 2013 around Moalboal and Pescador Island off western Cebu, Mactan Island beside Cebu City, Alona Beach on Panglao and Balicasag Island off Bohol, Apo Island off Negros, Punta Ballo at Sipalay in Negros Occidental, and Boracay. The underwater record here comes from Anderson's dive logs rather than photographs, since the surviving frames from these trips are topside.

The logs describe walls as the common setting: a wall at about 10 m at Sambaguita, a 32 m wall at Pescador Island, the deep Sanctuary wall on Balicasag, a wall with a cavern opening at about 25 m at Marigondon Cave on Mactan, and a deep wall through the Chapel dive at Apo. Sipalay offered a reef slope at Dante's Peak and pronounced spur-and-groove coral canyons at Habok Habok, and Boracay's Balinghai dive ran through a rubble canyon between two reef walls.

Hard coral was repeatedly the highlight. Talisay at Moalboal had close to continuous, genus-rich coral, with poritids, agaricids, acroporids, pocilloporids, fungids, and gonioporids logged. The Sambaguita shallows at 3-4 m were near-continuous branching Porites, Pescador had extensive Montipora in the shallows, and the Balicasag Sanctuary wall carried abundant coral (Anderson's log), turning to mostly encrusting forms with depth. At Marigondon Cave the log calls the hard coral cover and diversity striking given how close the site is to Cebu City. The exit there was through a coral garden interspersed with seagrass.

Pressures in the logs are few but specific: tabular acroporids overturned at Arco Point by a strong typhoon about two months earlier, and a Sipalay fish assemblage that appeared severely overfished despite good coral structure. Sightings include turtles at several sites, a juvenile blue-ringed octopus on the Moalboal night dive, trevally and sardine schools off Mactan and Balicasag, and at Boracay abundant tabular acroporids, at least fifteen nudibranchs, and large cuttlefish and mantis shrimp.