By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Oct 29 2002 (IPS)

The world’s coral reefs are suffering another very bad year in 2002, according to scientists who have so far this year recorded 430 cases of bleaching, a phenomenon that is linked to warmer seawater temperatures and can kill the reefs.

Data from a new information system, called ReefBase, shows that 2002 is the second worst year for coral bleaching after 1998, when a very strong episode of the El Nino weather phenomenon caused catastrophic bleaching events.

This was particularly so in the Indian Ocean, where entire reefs died off after the water temperature around Maldives and Seychelles rose by one degree.

The worst bleaching so far this year has taken place at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, although other incidents have been found in reefs in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Palau, Maldives, Tanzania, Seychelles, Belize, Ecuador, and off the U.S. coast in Florida.

“While the impacts are much less than in 1998, we are very concerned at what the short- and long-term impacts are going to be on the reefs themselves and the people who depend on them,” said Meryl Williams, director general of the WorldFish Centre in Penang, Malaysia.

“A lot will hinge on how well the reefs recover from these latest events and if further bleaching events occur over the coming years,” she added.

The latest findings are being released this week as the world’s governments are meeting at the U.N. climate change talks in New Delhi.

While bleaching can be caused by any number of stressful environmental conditions — low salinity, extreme light, and various toxins and pollution — large-scale bleaching episodes are associated with unusually high sea temperatures that scientists believe are becoming frequent due to the effects of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

The latest information on coral reefs are also being released ahead of this week’s meeting here of the board of directors of the International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN), a coalition of a dozen international agencies concerned with the health of coral reefs and funded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The WorldFish Centre, ICRAN, and UNEP are co-sponsors of ReefBase.

While they occupy less than one quarter of one percent of the Earth’s total marine environment, reefs are home to more than a quarter of all known marine fish species. The total number of life forms which are supported by coral reef ecosystems has been estimated at more than one million.

According to one estimate, reef habitats provide humans with living resources, such as fish, and services, such as tourism and protection for populated coastal areas from waves and storms, worth almost 400 billion U.S. dollars a year.

Despite their vast age – some living coral reefs are as old as 2.5 million years – very little was known about their true extent and condition until an initial survey of 108 countries was published by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in 1988.

The first global date depicting their location was published by the London-based agency only six years ago.

As more has become known about them, concern about their vulnerability has grown sharply. A widely cited 1993 report, based mainly on anecdotal evidence and small sample of reefs which had been assessed scientifically, asserted that 10 percent of the world’s reefs were dead and that another 30 percent were likely to die by 2012.

A 1998 report by the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI) and UNEP, which included a significantly larger sample, found that almost 60 percent of the world’s reefs were under high or medium threat from human activity.

However, that estimate was considered “conservative” by its authors because it did not include projections of future threats, including population growth and global warming.

According to a 2000 study, 27 percent of the world’s reefs have been effectively lost, including some 16 percent that were severely damaged during the 1998 El Nino. Another 14 percent are expected to die over the next decade and a further 18 percent between 2010 and 2030 unless much more is done to protect them, according to ReefBase.

Such actions begin with making reefs protected zones and actively preventing such practices as fishing with explosives or cyanide, a major problem in parts of South-east Asia.

It also means preventing the run-off of sewage and fertilisers, which spur the proliferation of algae that then choke the reefs.

Dealing with global warming, however, is a much bigger problem. Global warming may not only increase seawater temperatures; it is also believed to increase the frequency and intensity of storms that batter the reefs, damaging their structure.

Coral bleaching results from a process in which corals expel the algal cells that normally live within their tissue. Bleached coral looks very similar to coral that has recently died, but can be distinguished by the presence of small polyps and tentacles on the coral surface.

That signals that the coral remains alive but is under severe stress. If the causes of that stress are neither too severe nor long lasting, the coral can recover, although even then, it may not grow at a normal rate.

Of the 430 bleaching episodes so far this year, experts say reports of such incidents are only now becoming comprehensive because the scientific community only began collecting the data systematically over the past decade. ReefBase includes reports of bleaching incidents going back to 1963.

“The database shows an increase in the frequency and intensity of bleaching, as well as a rise in the number of countries affected,” said Jamie Oliver, the chairman of ICRAN’s steering committee. “While some of this may be due to increased awareness of the problem, the phenomenon has been well known among divers and scientists for many years, so the trend is almost certainly real.”

“It is too early to determine what level of mortality will occur as a result of the current bleaching, but based on previous events we can expect a significant number of reefs to suffer loss of corals which could take many years to replace,” he added.

Excerpt:

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Oct 28 2002 (IPS)

The world’s coral reefs are suffering another very bad year in 2002, according to scientists who have so far this year recorded 430 cases of bleaching, a phenomenon that is linked to warmer seawater temperatures and can kill the reefs.

Data from a new information system, called ReefBase, shows that 2002 is the second worst year for coral bleaching after 1998, when a very strong episode of the El Nino weather phenomenon caused catastrophic bleaching events. This was particularly so in the Indian Ocean, where entire reefs died off after the water temperature around Maldives and Seychelles rose by one degree.

The worst bleaching so far this year has taken place at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, although other incidents have been found in reefs in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Palau, Maldives, Tanzania, Seychelles, Belize, Ecuador, and off the U.S. coast in Florida.

”While the impacts are much less than in 1998, we are very concerned at what the short- and long-term impacts are going to be on the reefs themselves and the people who depend on them,” said Meryl Williams, director general of the WorldFish Centre in Penang, Malaysia.

”A lot will hinge on how well the reefs recover from these latest events and if further bleaching events occur over the coming years,” she added.

The latest findings are being released this week as the world’s governments are meeting at the U.N. climate change talks in New Delhi.

While bleaching can be caused by any number of stressful environmental conditions – low salinity, extreme light, and various toxins and pollution – large-scale bleaching episodes are associated with unusually high sea temperatures that scientists believe are becoming frequent due to the effects of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

The latest information on coral reefs are also being released ahead of this week’s meeting here of the board of directors of the International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN), a coalition of a dozen international agencies concerned with the health of coral reefs and funded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The WorldFish Centre, ICRAN, and UNEP are co-sponsors of ReefBase.

While they occupy less than one quarter of one percent of the Earth’s total marine environment, reefs are home to more than a quarter of all known marine fish species. The total number of life forms which are supported by coral reef ecosystems has been estimated at more than one million.

According to one estimate, reef habitats provide humans with living resources, such as fish, and services, such as tourism and protection for populated coastal areas from waves and storms, worth almost 400 billion U.S. dollars a year.

Despite their vast age – some living coral reefs are as old as 2.5 million years – very little was known about their true extent and condition until an initial survey of 108 countries was published by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in 1988.

The first global date depicting their location was published by the London-based agency only six years ago.

As more has become known about them, concern about their vulnerability has grown sharply. A widely cited 1993 report, based mainly on anecdotal evidence and small sample of reefs which had been assessed scientifically, asserted that 10 percent of the world’s reefs were dead and that another 30 percent were likely to die by 2012.

A 1998 report by the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI) and UNEP, which included a significantly larger sample, found that almost 60 percent of the world’s reefs were under high or medium threat from human activity.

However, that estimate was considered ”conservative” by its authors because it did not include projections of future threats, including population growth and global warming.

According to a 2000 study, 27 percent of the world’s reefs have been effectively lost, including some 16 percent that were severely damaged during the 1998 El Nino. Another 14 percent are expected to die over the next decade and a further 18 percent between 2010 and 2030 unless much more is done to protect them, according to ReefBase.

Such actions begin with making reefs protected zones and actively preventing such practices as fishing with explosives or cyanide, a major problem in parts of South-east Asia.

It also means preventing the run-off of sewage and fertilisers, which spur the proliferation of algae that then choke the reefs.

Dealing with global warming, however, is a much bigger problem. Global warming may not only increase seawater temperatures; it is also believed to increase the frequency and intensity of storms that batter the reefs, damaging their structure.

Coral bleaching results from a process in which corals expel the algal cells that normally live within their tissue. Bleached coral looks very similar to coral that has recently died, but can be distinguished by the presence of small polyps and tentacles on the coral surface.

That signals that the coral remains alive but is under severe stress. If the causes of that stress are neither too severe nor long lasting, the coral can recover, although even then, it may not grow at a normal rate.

Of the 430 bleaching episodes so far this year, experts say reports of such incidents are only now becoming comprehensive because the scientific community only began collecting the data systematically over the past decade. ReefBase includes reports of bleaching incidents going back to 1963.

”The database shows an increase in the frequency and intensity of bleaching, as well as a rise in the number of countries affected,” said Jamie Oliver, the chairman of ICRAN’s steering committee. ”While some of this may be due to increased awareness of the problem, the phenomenon has been well known among divers and scientists for many years, so the trend is almost certainly real.”

”It is too early to determine what level of mortality will occur as a result of the current bleaching, but based on previous events we can expect a significant number of reefs to suffer loss of corals which could take many years to replace,” he added.

Excerpt: