Reef diaries

(Nadine Pedoe)

Bloggers have been asked to write about World Hunger on this day, in an effort to bring it to the forefront of, and ensure it remains in public consciousness.

Over one billion people worldwide make their daily living from coral reefs, mainly through fishing and tourism. That’s greater than one in seven of the world’s current population. Without these reefs, and their livelihoods, what will all these people do? It isn’t just the wildlife that will benefit from conservation efforts. We are a part and parcel of the natural world. Unless we protect it, how can it protect and provide for us?

Coral reefs provide us with many things on a local and global scale:

• Food
• Income
• Protection from storms and hurricanes (without their barrier effect, Caye Caulker and other sand islands would be washed away quite quickly)
• Many medicines to combat diseases such as Cancer and AIDS may come from studying corals
• Oxygen – the algae living on the coral provide an estimated 25% of the atmospheric oxygen, some estimates say that algae produce as much as 80% of atmospheric oxygen, marine algae being the largest producer. So without coral reefs and rainforests, even the air we breathe is at risk
• Carbon sink – the ocean generally stores a large percentage of the carbon that would otherwise be adding to the global warming effect of atmospheric carbon. Marine algae are partly responsible for fixing this carbon.
• The most biodiverse marine ecosytem, and the 2nd most diverse on the planet (only rainforests have greater diversity). Biodiversity is vital for life’s survival, evolution and adaptability to naturally changing conditions.
• Economic value (through fishing and tourism etc) is upto US$400 billion a year

The following human activities have a devasting effect on the coral reef ecosystem:

• Global warming – increasing the temperature of the oceans by just a few degrees has a damaging effect on coral. Coral can grow as sea levels rise naturally, but it’s thought no where near fast enough to meet the massive sea level rises we’re causing
• Overfishing, by various methods, especially by blasting and cyanide poisoning
• Sewage and waste water effluent – phosphates and nitrates are especially damaging to coral, and other chemicals kill species or favour conditions for the spread of infections
• Dredging – mainly to clear access channels for boats. Even some distance from the reef, the sand can be carried a large distance by currents and smoother the coral
• Overpopulation and Mass tourism – increasing all the sewage, waste water problems, demands on fish stocks, and even visiting the reefs when protection guidelines are not followed or in large numbers.
• Coral and sand mining for souvenirs and building materials
• Aquarium fish collection – many fish are caught often using chemicals to get them out of their hideways, those not colorful enough are discarded, those effected by the chemicals usually only live a few months. 95% of aquarium fish are caught directly from the reef as capativity breeding only works for a couple of species.
• Atmospheric acid due to pollution. As the ocean captures atmospheric carbon, it increases the acidity level. Coral reefs are especially vulnerable to these changes, but all the ocean’s creatures are affected.
• Even desertification on continents far away can have an effect. Sand from the Sahara can and does blow right across the Atlantic, landing in the Caribbean sea. This was witnessed recently as a fine dust could be seen over the sea for several weeks, and mouths felt dry and thirsty.

More about coral reefs from Wikipedia

How coral reefs work – from the ‘How Stuff Works’ series

Many experts agree that there is still time to save large portions of the world’s coral reefs but only if we act now! We can change our behaviour, and lessen our impact on these fragile ecosystems, so vital to our own survival.

To go back to the orginal issue of human hunger: once the coral reefs are gone, that’s an extra 1 billion mouths (plus their children) that won’t be fed!

Tags: conservation, coral reef, education, fish, fishing, global, hunger, income, sustainable, tourism

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 12:26 am and is filed under Global issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.