2008: The International Year of the Reef

What many peo­ple may not know is that the world’s coral reefs are in seri­ous dan­ger from global cli­mate change, destruc­tive fish­ing meth­ods, unreg­u­lated tourism, coastal devel­op­ment, pol­lu­tion and the global aquar­ium trade. Because of this, 17 coun­tries and 30 orga­ni­za­tions have launched the International Year of the Reef, and three major envi­ron­men­tal groups—World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International—have pub­licly called on gov­ern­ments, busi­nesses, sci­en­tists and indi­vid­u­als around the world to vastly increase actions to pro­tect coral reefs.

Leah Bunce, PhD, is the senior direc­tor for Conservation International’s Marine Management Area Science Program and is fully involved in this effort. “We’re run­ning a marine sci­ence pro­gram that focuses on marine pro­tected areas,” she told Organic Connections. “These are geo­graph­i­cally defined areas that typ­i­cally focus on pro­tect­ing bio­di­ver­sity, but also on ensur­ing sus­tain­able liveli­hoods all over the world.”

What Exactly Are Coral Reefs?

Coral reefs are com­posed of hard corals, one of Earth’s more inter­est­ing forms of life. Small cylin­dri­cal organ­isms known as polyps, they are sim­ple inver­te­brate ani­mals that have much of their diet pro­vided by one-celled algae called zoox­an­thel­lae. These algae exist in a fas­ci­nat­ing sym­bio­sis with the coral, liv­ing inside the polyps, shar­ing space and exchang­ing gases and nutri­ents. Corals also eat small fish, plank­ton and other food particles.

The great reefs come about as mil­lions of the tiny polyps extract cal­cium from sur­round­ing sea­wa­ter and with it cre­ate a hard­ened struc­ture for pro­tec­tion and growth, also estab­lish­ing the basis for an ecosys­tem and home for hun­dreds of thou­sands, if not mil­lions, of other species. Coral reefs are the largest liv­ing struc­tures on the planet.

Because of the need of the plants (algae) for light, corals must com­pete for space on sea floors where light is abun­dant. It is unfor­tu­nately this expo­sure that also makes them so sus­cep­ti­ble to envi­ron­men­tal dangers.

Why Are Coral Reefs So Important?

Coral reefs help sup­port many of their host coun­tries through tourism—each year mil­lions of divers visit reefs to wit­ness their unpar­al­leled beauty. But the value of the reefs goes far beyond their beauty.

If put together, it is esti­mated the entire world’s coral reefs would only equal an area of land some­where between the sizes of Ecuador and Spain. Such a mass rep­re­sents far less than 1 per­cent of the ocean—they are gen­er­ally found only within trop­i­cal and sub­trop­i­cal waters between lat­i­tudes 30° north and 30° south—yet coral reefs har­bor more than one-quarter of the ocean’s bio­di­ver­sity. No other ecosys­tem occu­pies such lim­ited space with so many life forms. “Coral reefs are often described as the rain­forests of the sea,” Dr. Bunce said. “They’re basi­cally the lifeblood to many trop­i­cal coastal com­mu­ni­ties, both in devel­oped and devel­op­ing coun­tries. In fact, World Resources esti­mated that prop­erly man­aged coral reefs can yield an aver­age of 15 tons of fish and other seafood per square kilo­me­ter each year.”

Reefs are actu­ally home to over 4,000 dif­fer­ent species of fish. They also host a mul­ti­tude of types of inver­te­brates, such as jel­ly­fish, sponges, worms, shrimp, spiny lob­sters, crabs, shell­fish, starfish, sea urchins, sea cucum­bers, sea tur­tles and sea snakes.

These thriv­ing aquatic com­mu­ni­ties addi­tion­ally act to pro­tect shore­lines from storms. “Reefs are increas­ingly rec­og­nized as shore­line pro­tec­tion,” said Dr. Bunce. “In fact, when the tsunami hit Southeast Asia it was areas that had their coral reefs and man­groves intact that were the least impacted.”

With such a rel­a­tively small area pro­vid­ing home to such a large vari­ety of aquatic life and pro­vid­ing sus­te­nance and liveli­hood for so many, it is obvi­ous that destruc­tion of these oases would be a mas­sive blow to global econ­omy as well as oceanic ecology.

What Is Endangering Coral Reefs?

In the last few decades, over 35 mil­lion acres of coral reefs have been oblit­er­ated and reefs off 93 coun­tries have been dam­aged. According to The Nature Conservancy, if destruc­tion con­tin­ues at the cur­rent rate, in 50 years 70 per­cent of the world’s coral reefs will have disappeared.

“We’re already see­ing sub­stan­tial impacts,” said Dr. Bunce. “Studies have shown that an esti­mated 30 per­cent of the coral reefs are already severely dam­aged, and an esti­mated 60 per­cent may be lost by 2030.”

Overfishing and Destructive Methods

Increasing demand for reef fish as food as well as tourism sou­venirs, espe­cially in areas in which such fish­ing is not reg­u­lated, has resulted in over­fish­ing and deple­tion of some species. Overfishing of cer­tain species can upset a reef ’s eco­log­i­cal bal­ance; for exam­ple, over­fish­ing of her­biv­o­rous fish can lead to high lev­els of algae growth.

In order to expe­dite tak­ing of fish, unscrupu­lous fish­er­men uti­lize dyna­mite, cyanide and other dan­ger­ous meth­ods to stun fish and ren­der them eas­ier to catch. Such meth­ods not only break up the frag­ile coral reef, they also do not select or tar­get par­tic­u­lar species and often result in the destruc­tion of juve­niles and “unus­able” species of life. Such tac­tics are used as well by the aquar­ium trade to sat­isfy the ever grow­ing aquar­ium mar­ket world­wide. Ironically, such meth­ods are destroy­ing the very source of the offend­ers’ livelihoods.

Uninformed and Careless Tourism

Coral reefs gen­er­ate fan­tas­tic amounts of tourist income for their host coun­tries. Yet because tourists are rarely informed of the fragility of these envi­ron­ments, they cause dam­age by han­dling, step­ping on and drop­ping boat anchors into reefs. Meanwhile some hotels and resorts cater­ing to these same tourists dis­charge untreated sewage and waste­water into the ocean, pol­lut­ing the water and encour­ag­ing the growth of algae, which com­petes for space on the reef with corals.

Coastal Development

Coastal cities and towns are con­stantly being devel­oped. Where space is lim­ited, air­ports and other struc­tures may be built on land reclaimed from the sea. Dredging activ­ity uti­lized to make deep-water chan­nels or mari­nas can destroy or dis­turb sen­si­tive habi­tats, as can the dump­ing of waste. Reefs can be degraded where the nat­ural flow of water is altered, caus­ing greater amounts of fresh water, nutri­ents and sed­i­ment to reach the reefs. Because coral reefs are bio­log­i­cal assem­blages adapted to waters with low nutri­ent con­tent, reef com­mu­nity bal­ance is greatly dis­rupted. Nutrient-rich water causes fleshy algae and phy­to­plank­ton to thrive in coastal areas in suf­fo­cat­ing amounts.

Global Warming

A slight rise in max­i­mum water tem­per­a­tures— only one to two degrees—can stress the corals caus­ing them to expel zoox­an­thel­lae, the micro­scopic organ­isms that color their tis­sues and pro­vide them with essen­tial nutri­ents. This results in a phe­nom­e­non known as “coral bleach­ing,” a rapid whiten­ing of the coral. If tem­per­a­tures return to nor­mal, the coral can recover, but if not they can die. The impacts from coral bleach­ing are becom­ing global in scale and are increas­ing in fre­quency and inten­sity. Significant bleach­ing events were reported in 1982, 1987 and 1992. The strongest sea sur­face warm­ing event ever recorded occurred in 1998, in which an esti­mated 46 per­cent of the corals in the west­ern Indian Ocean were heav­ily impacted or died.

Cumulative Impact

“What we’re basi­cally see­ing is a cumu­la­tive impact,” explained Dr. Bunce. “If you can imag­ine that your immune sys­tem as a human is run down by poor eat­ing habits or how you treat your body, and then you also get hit with some sort of virus, you’re going to be com­pletely wiped out; whereas if you’re keep­ing your body in good shape, you’re going to have stronger resilience. In a sim­i­lar way, coral reefs are hav­ing local­ized impacts from over­fish­ing or from land-based pol­lu­tion and runoff, and then they get hit with the larger impact of cli­mate change.”

What Can Be Done?

In 2003, the World Parks Congress urged that at least 20 to 30 per­cent of each marine habi­tat should be pro­tected by 2012. At cur­rent lev­els of effort, this goal will not be achieved for coral reefs. Given the impor­tance of these sys­tems for ocean life and human well-being, and the spe­cial stresses they face because of cli­mate change, the need to act now is crit­i­cal. In the Year of the Reef, the World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International are specif­i­cally urging

• that the area of coral reefs under pro­tec­tion be increased glob­ally from the cur­rent level of 15 per­cent to 30 percent;
• that pro­tected zones be care­fully designed as sys­tems that are able to resist or rapidly recover from the mul­ti­ple stresses they face, includ­ing those caused by cli­mate change;
• that within these pro­tected zone sys­tems, there be sig­nif­i­cant areas where human uses are con­sid­er­ably lim­ited so that already stressed marine species can recover;
• that gov­ern­ments and civil soci­eties work together to achieve the effec­tive man­age­ment of all coral reef pro­tected areas.

“The local­ized impacts to coral reefs are what we have the most con­trol over,” Dr. Bunce said. “It’s become even more impor­tant that we man­age and reduce those threats because of the addi­tional threat of global impacts. Establishing marine parks has become a way of focus­ing atten­tion on pri­or­ity loca­tions and pro­vid­ing them the pro­tec­tion they need.”

What You Can Do

There are many things indi­vid­u­als can do to help pro­tect coral reefs.

• Don’t lit­ter the beach. In addi­tion to pick­ing up your own trash, carry away the trash that oth­ers have left behind. More than just being unsightly, beach lit­ter poses a sig­nif­i­cant threat to the health and sur­vival of marine organisms.
• Recycle. This helps keep trash out of the oceans and also out of land­fills where it can have an adverse impact on the water qual­ity of our rivers and oceans.
• Report dump­ing or other ille­gal activ­i­ties. Your involve­ment can help make a big difference.
• Be an informed con­sumer. Only buy marine fish and other reef organ­isms for your aquar­ium when you know they have been col­lected in an eco­log­i­cally sound man­ner. Ask store man­agers where they come from and how they were col­lected. For more infor­ma­tion on how to find sus­tain­ably har­vested reef fish, visit www.aquariumcouncil.org.
• If you dive, don’t touch the coral! Keep your fins, gear and hands away from the reef, as con­tact will dam­age the del­i­cate coral ani­mals. Stay off the bot­tom, because dis­turbed sed­i­ments can smother the corals.
• If you take out a boat, don’t anchor in the reef. Use moor­ing buoy sys­tems when they are available.
• Make sure your waste­water is prop­erly man­aged. Ensure that sewage from your boat and home is cor­rectly treated.
• Don’t use chem­i­cally enhanced pes­ti­cides and fer­til­iz­ers. Although you may live thou­sands of miles from a coral reef, these prod­ucts even­tu­ally enter com­mon water­ways such as streams and lakes and ulti­mately arrive in the ocean.
• Support only reef-friendly busi­nesses. Ask what your dive shop, boat­ing store, tour oper­a­tor, hotel and other coastal busi­nesses are doing to save coral reefs.

In addi­tion to the above, Dr. Bunce also sug­gests you only pur­chase seafood that has been sus­tain­ably grown and har­vested. “In the US, there are great seafood guides you can con­sult,” she said. “The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a fan­tas­tic one. Such guides advise what seafood is sus­tain­able.” And lastly, spread the word! Educate oth­ers on reefs and their impor­tance, espe­cially those who are going off on Caribbean, Hawaiian or other trop­i­cal vacations.