Over the last 50 years, Brazil has lost 80 percent of the coral reefs along its coasts, according to a study carried out between 2002 and 2010 by the Federal University of Pernambuco and the Ministry of Environment. The study, released in late September at the 7th Brazilian Congress of Conservation Units, compared data gathered in recent years with data from earlier research.

“The main causes of this degradation are pollution, sedimentation resulting from deforestation, and the effects of climate change,” Beatrice Padovani Ferreira, the coordinator of the new research study, told Tierramérica.

“The extraction of coral from the reefs to produce lime, done with pickaxes or explosives and frequent in the 1980s, is also responsible for a large part of this destruction,” she added.

Despite this serious deterioration, however, some areas still maintain good coral coverage, the report notes.