How We Can Save Coral Reefs and Why We Should

Coral reefs are among the most beautiful ecosystems on Earth — “a jeweled belt around the middle of the planet,” in oceanographer Sylvia Earle’s words.  They also are extremely valuable.  Reefs cover less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the ocean floor but support more than 800 species of coral and 4,000 species of fish.  They are spawning grounds, coastal buffers against storms and lucrative tourist draws.  According to some estimates, the services they provide are worth up to $30 billion yearly.

To the detriment of those benefits, however, coral reefs have been deteriorating  since the 1970s under a cascade of human impacts.  Overfishing disrupts their complex communities of large predators, smaller prey species and “grazers” such as parrotfish and urchins that clean large algae off corals.  Dredging for coastal development clouds water with sediment, blocking sunlight and depleting oxygen.  Massive blooms of algae, fed by nutrients in farm runoff and wastewater, smother corals.  Pathogens, possibly spread by global shipping, kill off corals and urchins.

Now increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are causing ocean waters to warm and making them more acidic.  Warm water causes bleaching episodes in which coral polyps expel the microscopic algae that live inside their tissues and nourish them.  Algae provide corals’ color, so the reefs turn white.  Corals can recover, but the process stresses and may kill them.  Acidification, which occurs as seawater absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere, reduces the amount of carbonate available for corals to build their skeletons, so reefs grow more slowly and become weaker.

But reef specialists aren’t giving up.  Some are identifying characteristics that help certain corals tolerate warming and acidification.  Others are conditioning corals to thrive in altered oceans, much as athletes train to compete at high altitudes or in harsh weather.

“We’re trying to counter the message that all corals are doomed,” says Ruth Gates, a research professor at the University of Hawaii’s Institute of Marine Biology.  “Corals have been evolving on Earth for millions of years, and they’ve survived for good reason.”

Boosting Resilience

Some experts say warming and acidification are receiving too much attention, and that local stresses are more urgent.

“Climate change is only half the story,” says Jeremy Jackson, former director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at California’s Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Jackson was lead editor of a report published in July by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network that found wide variations in reef decline rates across the Caribbean since the 1970s. While corals had declined by more than 50 percent regionwide since 1970, countries that restricted fishing, coastal development and tourism, such as Bermuda, suffered much less coral loss than those that failed to enact similar controls, such as Jamaica.  And healthy reefs weathered hurricanes and bleaching episodes more easily than ones already degraded by overfishing and water pollution.

“Ironically, the United States spends lots of money on monitoring coral reefs, but doesn’t do much to protect them,” says Jackson.  “Our strategy seems to be watching them till they die.”

In late August the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration took a first step toward changing that, listing 20 coral species as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.  The listing means that other federal agencies will have to consult with NOAA before they fund or authorize actions that would affect these corals, such as energy projects, pollution discharge permits, dredging, boat traffic or military activities.  And NOAA will work with states and communities to protect the corals through strategies such as reducing land-based pollution and transplanting corals grown in laboratories to repopulate degraded reefs.

How We Can Save Coral Reefs and Why We Should