The ways to save coral reefs

You won’t see beautiful coral reefs, of which there are many under the sea, if they bleach out and can not be recovered rapidly. The underwater landscapes constructed by healthy coral reefs and their diverse species are one of the most surprising natural views in the world. Under global warming and anthropogenic factors, coral reefs are dying out. About 60% of the Red Sea’s reefs have been damaged (Waghorn, 2007), up to 90% of corals had been killed in Australia in the summers of 1998 and 2002, and a similar situation happened in Maldives, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Tanzania and in the Seychelles (Coral Bleaching, 2007). In accordance with the destroying speed, two thrirds of all coral reefs will be extinct during twenty to forty years in the future.

Except for big change, such as global warming, we should avoid anthropogenic factors. Overfishing is a very serious situation for coral reefs bleaching. A great many diving companies provide diving tourism without protecting norms for coral reefs and some of them even have the service of collecting animated corals for souvenirs. Those acivities hurt them directly. Beside the coasts, many fishermen catch topical fish for restaurantsand aquariums. Disused nets and decreasing number of species damage coral reefs’ growth. If we don’t try hard to protect coral reefs, these species of the bio-chain would become extinct gradually. According to Science Daily (2007), local action can help to re-build the reefs and promote their recovery. In order to maintain coral reefs and other underwater species, and to have a beautiful undersea life, building artificial reefs (Waghorn, 2007), banning overfishing (Barclay, 2007) and pushing the US to sign the Kyoto protocol to the United Nations framework convention on climate change are good solutions.

First, putting artificial reefs underwater will provide a good number of advantages. In the article “State of Florida Artificial Reef Strategic Plan” (2003), there were several benefits had been mentioned, for instance, to ensure marine environment, human health and marine organisms are protected, restored, enhanced or sustained; to support data collection for scientific research and innovative technology; to provide future direction for the development of artificial reef policies. They can supply food, shelter protection and spawning area for hundreds of species of the fish and other marine organisms and reduce pressure on natural reefs and also provide alternate areas for divers. According to Blackburn, “Since the reef was put, diver interest has been high. About 100 divers have been visiting the reef daily and almost double the number of divers visiting nearby natural reefs” (Blackburn, 2007, para.20.). Scientist from Israel and Jordan who work together put artificial reefs underwater to build a new environment for species and escape running our ecosystem (Blackburn, 2007). This solution to save coral reefs takes 25 years less than natural processing, which requires over one hundred years. On the other hand, this is a fast way to attract undersea species, and is the best strategy to recover bleaching coral reefs. Building a new environment for undersea species is not only a benefit for the marine ecosystem, but also for our sustainable environment.

Second, enforcing the laws against overfishing is an important strategy in saving coral reefs. In Barcaly’s (2007) article, “The biggest threats to the region’s marine ecosystem are illegal fishing with destructive gear such as dragnets, small mesh nets and poles used to break coral…” (par. 13). Based on long term records, overfishing should be taken as the first factor of coral ecosystem’s killer (Davidson, 2003). Some countries have laws; however, they did not enforce them. In some developing countries, people have to fight for their live to take adventures in illegal fishing or to work for the tropical fish trade. Moreover, they couldn’t care less about how the ecosystem is changed by them. Local governments should stretch out to help the people to find alternated ways of survival and give them other opportunities for existence. The action requires local and national awareness and the education of fishermen on alternative fishing method. At the international level, to work together to regulate the trade of fishing, and to find the balanced approaches in a sustainable manner are critical. Belize and UN have focused on this issue, and have their fishermen participate to protect their underwater ecosystem (Handwerk, 2003). Cooperation is a good way for preserving coral reefs. Local governments should regard overfishing as the most important task, and address he problem of how to administer the law more effectively.

Finally, pushing pollution producing countries make efforts of reducing greenhouse gases. The US refused to sign the Kyoto protocol protecting the earth’s environment. President Bush said that they use a different way to deal with the greenhouse effect and it’s the same goal to diminish greenhouse gases. The protocol asked the developed countries who sign the s to decrease six greenhouse gas emissions during 2008 to 2010 (Kyoto Protocol Comes into Force, 2005). Therefore, these countries have to sharply reduce fuel, coal, gas and other industrial emissions of carbon dioxide. The US has 4% of the population of this world; however, their emission of carbon dioxide is 25% of this world and it is the biggest carbon dioxide emitting country. Although the US used to sign the protocol in 1998, in 2003 the president, Bush, said that to cut down the greenhouse gases will influence their economic growth, and raised unemployment, and they think that developing countries should take this as their obligation also. Some experts argue that if the US doesn’t commit to this protocol after 2012, it will not bring it to effect (Brown& Wilson, 2005). Moreover, if the US could escape this international commitment, the high-seed developing countries such as China and India, would lose the inducement to accede to it. As a result, our environment will crumble in the future.

Man-made reefs could save the underwater ecosystem, and vigilance is necessary even if artificial reefs are used, or the environment could also allow destruction by humans yet. As we know the Red Sea coast has had artificial reefs for several years for attraction a lot of related species to live; nevertheless, the ecosystem of coral reefs, fish, and other zooxanthellae were still damaged. The same situation happened in Hong Kong. The local governments’ standpoints are truly important in the building of artificial reefs, for instance, for sightseeing, for studying, for economic advancement, or for preserving the ecosystem. These purposes could have both positive and negative effects. For studying and preserving, the artificial reefs would have new kinds of zooxanthellae, and would allow people to know more about the growing trends of underwater. In this kind of purpose, the man-made ecosystem provides the marine ecosystem a living chance under the treat of global warming. In Taiwan, they put 17 artificial reefs for fishing, and marine ecosystem will become unbalanced by creating too many new environments. For tourism, the artificial reefs may be destroyed, because sightseeing people could not control their behaviors to stand on reefs or touch corals and too many people in tourism are pressured into contact with some animals. We can make tons of artificial reefs, and they should be protected and be valued. If the government doesn’ have enough sense to defend them from destruction, coral reefs will die ou for the equivalent reason, “human activities”.

In conclusion, building artificial reefs, banning overfishing and cosigning important international commitments are good strategies for maintaining our ecosystem and barely preserving coral reefs. However, people should keep the perspective of saving coral reefs in mind and holding operations to have a sustainable ecosystem. Don’t let the solutions become another disaster. Global arming threatens our environment actually. We must take action immediately. Or underwater bio-chains will bebroken and all species will become extinct in a short time.

References

Barclay, E. (2007, Oct. 31). African fishermen find way of conservation in the Koran. Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved on November 01, 2007, from http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1031/p01s04-woaf.html.

Blackburn, N. (2007, Aug. 13). Israeli-Jordanian team set up first artivicial coral reef in the Red Sea. Israel Ministry of Foreign affairs. Retrieved on November 23, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siki/Coral_bleaching.

Davidson, K. (2003, Aug. 16). Coral Reefs Doomed, Study Says. Commondreams.org. Retrieved on November 24, 2007, from .

Kyoto Protocol Comes into Force. (2005, Feb. 16). BBC news. Retrieved on November 25, 2007, .

Oceans Alive. (n. d.). Solutions: what we can do. Oceans Alive. Retrieved on November 01, 2007, from http://www.oceansalive.org/explore.cfm?subnav=article&contentID=4710.

Science Daily (2007, Oct. 22). Coral reefs on brink of disaster, scientists urge action now. ScienceDaily. Retrieved on October 23, 2007, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071021225256.htm.

Waghorn, D. (2007, Oct. 25). Race to save coral reefs from scuba divers. CDNN Global News Network. Retrieved on November 01, 2007, from http://www.cdnn.info/news/eco/e071025.html.