The waters of Indonesia are home to a very rich biodiversity of corals and reef fish with high economic value. The waters of West Papua’s Bird’s Head Seascape have the highest biodiversity compared with all other areas in Indonesia. Dampier Straits Marine Protected Area has an area of 366.000 hectares and is located among the Raja Ampat marine protected areas.
Hard coral dominates coral reef ecosystems and has important functions and interactions in communities of marine biota. The structure and diversity of hard coral communities is very important to quantify, especially for the management of coral reef ecosystems. The purpose of this research is to identify the diversity of hard coral types, and quantify the condition of hard coral and their distributions in 10 marine stations in Dampier Straits Marine Protected Areas, Raja Ampat.