The South China Sea or West Philippine Sea (SCS/WPS) forms part of the Coral Triangle with high marine biodiversity. It is also a highly contested maritime area with overlapping claims by Brunei Darussalam, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. This maritime route between the Indo-Pacific and Europe is of major importance for external trade of European countries, such as Germany, with 40 percent of its external trade passing through this route. As claimant states intensify efforts to assert territorial control through infrastructure development and military patrols, marine biodiversity and resource-dependent local communities are seemingly negatively affected.
