Marine ecologists urge action to save coral reefs

The researchers say that despite small improvements, the condition of the coral reefs is accelerating in a negative direction, and pollution, over fishing, disease, and thermal stress generated by global warming are the culprits. The team recommends that the U.S. begin managing reef ecosystems as entire ecosystems instead of as fragmented sets of habitats.

• An international team of marine ecologists is urging the United States to take immediate action to save its fragile coral reefs.
• "We're frustrated with how slowly things are moving with coral reef conservation in the United States," said Fiorenza Micheli, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station.
• Micheli and Stanford graduate student Carrie Kappel are among 11 researchers from the United States and Australia who co-authored the Science essay, which focused on America's two major coral reef systems in Hawaii and Florida.
• Florida's coral reef barrier stretches some 200 miles along the Florida Keys and plays an important role in the state's economy.
• In 1990, the U.S. government established the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary to protect the reef--third longest in the world behind Australia and Belize.
• But pollution, overfishing, disease and thermal stress caused by climate change remain significant problems throughout the sanctuary, according to the authors.
• "Conversion of 16,000 cesspools to centralized sewage treatment and control of other land-based pollution have only just begun," they noted, and only 6 percent of sanctuary waters have been set aside as "no take zones" where fishing is prohibited.
• In contrast, the neighboring countries of Cuba and the Bahamas have agreed to conserve 20 percent of their coral reef ecosystems, while Australia recently zoned one-third of its massive Great Barrier Reef as "no take" in an attempt to reverse further ecological decline.
• The coral reefs of Hawaii's main islands--Oahu, Maui, Kauai and Hawaii--also show degradation similar to that of the Florida Keys, according to the authors.
• And while reefs in the isolated northwest Hawaiian Islands remain in relatively good condition, they, too, are showing signs of decline: "Monk seals and green turtles are endangered; large amounts of marine debris are accumulating, which injure or kill corals, seabirds, mammals, turtles and fishes; and levels of contaminants, including lead and PCBs, are high."
• One day, reefs of the United States could be the pride of the nation."