The Marshalltown - Helen Clark
As the largest international gathering of coral reef experts comes to
a close, scientists have sent a letter to Australian officials calling
for action to save the world’s reefs, which are being rapidly damaged.
The letter was sent Saturday to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull imploring his government to do more to conserve the nation’s
reefs and curb fossil fuel consumption.
The letter, signed by past and present presidents of the
International Society for Reef Studies on behalf of the 2,000 attendees
of the International Coral Reef Symposium that was held in Honolulu this
week, urged the Australian government to prioritize its Great Barrier
Reef.
“This year has seen the worst mass bleaching in history, threatening
many coral reefs around the world including the whole of the northern
Great Barrier Reef, the biggest and best-known of all reefs,” the letter
said. “The damage to this Australian icon has already been devastating.
In addition to damage from greenhouse gasses, port dredging and
shipping of fossil fuels across the Great Barrier Reef contravene
Australia’s responsibilities for stewardship of the Reef under the World
Heritage Convention.”
Leaders from the scientific community at the convention in Honolulu
said Friday that the “unprecedented” letter was critical to the
conservation of the fragile reef habitat.
Scientists are not known for their political activism, said James
Cook University professor Terry Hughes, but they felt this crisis
warranted such action.
“We are not ready to write the obituary for coral reefs,” said
Hughes, who is also the president of the ARC Centre of Excellence for
Coral Reef Studies in Australia.
A call to action from three Pacific island nations whose reefs are in
the crosshairs of the largest and longest-lasting coral bleaching event
in recorded history was presented Friday at the conclusion of the
International Coral Reef Symposium in Honolulu. The Associated Press was
given advance access to the call for action and the scientific
community’s response.
The heads of state from Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands
attended the conference and will provide a plan to help save their
ailing coral reefs, which are major contributors to their local
economies and the daily sustenance of their people. The call to action,
signed by the three presidents, asked for better collaboration between
the scientific community and local governments, saying there needs to be
more funding and a strengthened commitment to protecting the reefs.
“If our coral reefs are further degraded, then our reef-dependent
communities will suffer and be displaced,” the letter said. They also
called for more integration of “traditional knowledge, customary
practices and scientific research” in building a comprehensive coral
reef policy.
In response to the letter, the scientific community at the conference
said: “We pledge to take up the 13th ICRS Leaders’ Call to Action, and
will work together with national leaders of the Federated States of
Micronesia, the Republic of Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands,
and the world to curb the continued loss of coral reefs.”
Bleaching is a process where corals, stressed by hot ocean waters and
other environmental changes, lose their colour as the symbiotic algae
that lives within them is released. Severe or concurrent years of
bleaching can kill coral reefs, as has been documented over the past two
years in oceans around the world. Scientists expect a third year of
bleaching to last through the end of 2016.
In the northern third of the Great Barrier Reef, close to half of the
corals have died in the past three months, said Hughes, who focuses his
research there. The area of the reef that suffered most is extremely
remote, he said, with no pollution, very little fishing pressure and no
coastal development.
“That’s an absolute catastrophe,” Hughes said. “There’s nowhere to hide from climate change.”
But the panel of scientists emphasized the progress they have made
over the past 30 years and stressed that good research and management
programs for coral reefs are available. The scientists said they just
need the proper funding and political will to enact them.
The researchers focused on the economic and social benefits coral
reefs contribute to communities across the globe, saying the critical
habitats generate trillions of dollars annually but conservation efforts
are not proportionately or adequately funded.
In the United States, the budget for the federal coral reef
conservation program is set at about $27 million a year, said Bob
Richmond, director of the University of Hawaii’s Kewalo Marine
Laboratory and convener of this year’s International Coral Reef
Symposium.
In Hawaii, he said, the reefs are valued at $34 billion, and the
return to the state’s economy is about $360 million annually — meaning
the entire nation’s budget for coral reef conservation is less than 10
per cent of the annual return in that one state alone.
Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa
and the Northern Mariana Islands also have ailing reefs under the
budget.
The Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000, which aimed to protect coral
reefs and create programs to manage their conservation, has been
plagued by political resistance and a severe lack of funding, said
Robert Richmond, former president of the International Society for Reef
Studies.
Links
No comments :
Post a Comment