09/12/2020

It Might Be The World’s Biggest Ocean, But The Mighty Pacific Is In Peril

The Conversation -  |  |  |  |  | 

Shutterstock
Authors
The Pacific Ocean is the deepest, largest ocean on Earth, covering about a third of the globe’s surface. An ocean that vast may seem invincible. Yet across its reach – from Antarctica in the south to the Arctic in the north, and from Asia to Australia to the Americas – the Pacific Ocean’s delicate ecology is under threat.

In most cases, human activity is to blame. We have systematically pillaged the Pacific of fish. We have used it as a rubbish tip – garbage has been found even in the deepest point on Earth, in the Mariana Trench 11,000 metres below sea level.

And as we pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the Pacific, like other oceans, is becoming more acidic. It means fish are losing their sense of sight and smell, and sea organisms are struggling to build their shells.

Oceans produce most of the oxygen we breathe. They regulate the weather, provide food, and give an income to millions of people. They are places of fun and recreation, solace and spiritual connection. So, healthy, vibrant oceans benefit us all. And by better understanding the threats to the precious Pacific, we can start the long road to protecting it.

The ocean plastic scourge

NOTE
This article is part of The Conversation’s international network Oceans 21 series:
  • Ancient Indian Ocean trade networks
  • Pacific plastic pollution
  • Arctic light and life
  • Atlantic fisheries
  • The Southern Ocean’s impact on global climate
The problem of ocean plastic was scientifically recognised in the 1960s after two scientists saw albatross carcasses littering the beaches of the northwest Hawaiian Islands in the northern Pacific. Almost three in four albatross chicks, who died before they could fledge, had plastic in their stomachs.

Now, plastic debris is found in all major marine habitats around the world, in sizes ranging from nanometers to meters. A small portion of this accumulates into giant floating “garbage patches”, and the Pacific Ocean is famously home to the largest of them all.

Most plastic debris from land is transported into the ocean through rivers. Just 20 rivers contribute two-thirds of the global plastic input into the sea, and ten of these discharge into the northern Pacific Ocean. Each year, for example, the Yangtze River in China – which flows through Shanghai – sends about 1.5 million metric tonnes of debris into the Pacific’s Yellow Sea. 

This 2014 photo shows a black footed albatross chick with plastics in its stomach on Midway Atoll in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Dan Clark/ U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP






A wildlife killer

Plastic debris in the oceans presents innumerable hazards for marine life. Animals can get tangled in debris such as discarded fishing nets, causing them to be injured or drown.

Some organisms, such as microscopic algae and invertebrates, can also hitch a ride on floating debris, travelling large distances across the oceans. This means they can be dispersed out of their natural range, and can colonise other regions as invasive species.

And of course, wildlife can be badly harmed by ingesting debris, such as microplastics less than five millimetres in size. This plastic can obstruct an animal’s mouth or accumulate in its stomach. Often, the animal dies a slow, painful death.

Seabirds, in particular, often mistake floating plastics for food. A 2019 study found there was a 20% chance seabirds would die after ingesting a single item, rising to 100% after consuming 93 items.

Discarded fishing nets, or ‘ghost nets’ can entangle animals like turtles. Shutterstock
A scourge on small island nations

Plastic is extremely durable, and can float vast distances across the ocean. In 2011, 5 million tonnes of debris entered the Pacific during the Japan tsunami. Some crossed the entire ocean basin, ending up on North American coastlines.

And since floating plastics in the open ocean are transported mainly by ocean surface currents and winds, plastic debris accumulates on island coastlines along their path. Kamilo Beach, on the south-eastern tip of Hawaii’s Big Island, is considered one of the world’s worst for plastic pollution. Up to 20 tonnes of debris wash onto the beach each year.

Similarly, on uninhabited Henderson Island, part of the Pitcairn Island chain in the south Pacific, 18 tonnes of plastic have accumulated on a beach just 2.5km long. Several thousand pieces of plastic wash up each day.


Kamilo Beach is referred to as the world’s dirtiest.

Subtropical garbage patches

Plastic waste can have different fates in the ocean: some sink, some wash up on beaches and some float on the ocean surface, transported by currents, wind and waves.

Around 1% of plastic waste accumulates in five subtropical “garbage patches” in the open ocean. They’re formed as a result of ocean circulation, driven by the changing wind fields and the Earth’s rotation.

There are two subtropical garbage patches in the Pacific: one in the northern and one in the southern hemisphere.

The northern accumulation region is separated into an eastern patch between California and Hawaii, and a western patch, which extends eastwards from Japan.

Locations of the five subtropical garbage patches. van der Mheen et al. (2019)
Our ocean garbage shame

First discovered by Captain Charles Moore in the early 2000s, the eastern patch is better known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch because it’s the largest by both size (around 1.6 million square kilometers) and amount of plastic. By weight, this garbage patch can hold more than 100 kilograms per square kilometre.

The garbage patch in the southern Pacific is located off Valparaiso, Chile, extending to the west. It has lower concentrations compared to its giant counterpart in the northeast.

Discarded fishing nets make up around 45% of the total plastic weight in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Waste from the 2011 Japan tsunami is also a major contributor, making up an estimated 20% of the patch.

With time, larger plastic debris degrades into microplastics. Microplastics form only 8% of the total weight of plastic waste in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but make up 94% of the estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic there. In high concentrations, they can make the water “cloudy”.

Each year, up to 15 million tonnes of plastic waste are estimated to make their way into the ocean from coastlines and rivers. This amount is expected to double by 2025 as plastic production continues to increase.

We must act urgently to stem the flow. This includes developing plans to collect and remove the plastics and, vitally, stop producing so much in the first place.


Divers releasing a whale shark from a fishing net.

Fisheries on the verge of collapse

As the largest and deepest sea on Earth, the Pacific supports some of the world’s biggest fisheries. For thousands of years, people have relied on these fisheries for their food and livelihoods.

But, around the world, including in the Pacific, fishing operations are depleting fish populations faster than they can recover. This overfishing is considered one of the most serious threats to the world’s oceans.

Humans take about 80 million tonnes of wildlife from the sea each year. In 2019, the world’s leading scientists said of all threats to marine biodiversity over the past 50 years, fishing has caused the most harm. They said 33% of fish species were overexploited, 60% were being fished to the maximum level, and just 7% were underfished.

The decline in fish populations is not just a problem for humans. Fish play an important role in marine ecosystems and are a crucial link in the ocean’s complex food webs.

Overfishing is stripping the Pacific Ocean of marine life. Shutterstock 
Not plenty of fish in the sea

Overfishing happens when humans extract fish resources beyond the maximum level, known as the “maximum sustainable yield”. Fishing beyond this causes global fish stocks to decline, disrupts food chains, degrades habitats, and creates food scarcity for humans.

The Pacific Ocean is home to huge tuna fisheries, which provide almost 65% of the global tuna catch each year. But the long-term survival of many tuna populations is at risk.

For example, a study released in 2013 found numbers of bluefin tuna – a prized fish used to make sushi – had declined by more than 96% in the Northern Pacific Ocean.

Developing countries, including Indonesia and China, are major overfishers, but so too are developing nations.

Along Canada’s west coast, Pacific salmon populations have declined rapidly since the early 1990s, partly due to overfishing. And Japan was recently heavily criticised for a proposal to increase quotas on Pacific bluefin tuna, a species reportedly at just 4.5% of its historic population size.

Experts say overfishing is also a problem in Australia. For example, research in 2018 showed large fish species were rapidly declining around the nation due to excessive fishing pressure. In areas open to fishing, exploited populations fell by an average of 33% in the decade to 2015.

Stocks of fish used to make sushi have declined in number. Shutterstock
 
So what’s driving overfishing?
  
There are many reasons why overfishing occurs and why it is goes unchecked. The evidence points to:
Let’s take Indonesia as an example. Indonesia lies between the Pacific and Indian oceans and is the world’s third-biggest producer of wild-capture fish after China and Peru. Some 60% of the catch is made by small-scale fishers. Many hail from poor coastal communities.

Overfishing was first reported in Indonesia in the 1970s. It prompted a presidential decree in 1980, banning trawling off the islands of Java and Sumatra. But overfishing continued into the 1990s, and it persists today. Target species include reef fishes, lobster, prawn, crab, and squid.

Indonesia’s experience shows how there is no easy fix to the overfishing problem. In 2017, the Indonesian government issued a decree that was supposed to keep fishing to a sustainable level – 12.5 million tonnes per year. Yet, in may places, the practice continued – largely because the rules were not clear and local enforcement was inadequate.

Implementation was complicated by the fact that almost all Indonesia’s smaller fishing boats come under the control of provincial governments. This reveals the need for better cooperation between levels of government in cracking down on overfishing.

Globally, compliance and enforcement of fishing limits is often poor. Shutterstock 
What else can we do?

To prevent overfishing, governments should address the issue of poverty and poor education in small fishing communities. This may involve finding them a new source of income. For example in the town of Oslob in the Philippines, former fishermen and women have turned to tourism – feeding whale sharks tiny amounts of krill to draw them closer to shore so tourists can snorkel or dive with them.

Tackling overfishing in the Pacific will also require cooperation among nations to monitor fishing practices and enforce the rules.

And the world’s network of marine protected areas should be expanded and strengthened to conserve marine life. Currently, less than 3% of the world’s oceans are highly protected “no take” zones. In Australia, many marine reserves are small and located in areas of little value to commercial fishers.

The collapse of fisheries around the world shows just how vulnerable our marine life is. It’s clear that humans are exploiting the oceans beyond sustainable levels. Billions of people rely on seafood for protein and for their livelihoods. But by allowing overfishing to continue, we harm not just the oceans, but ourselves.

Providing fishers with an alternative income can help prevent overfishing. Shutterstock 
The threat of acidic oceans

The tropical and subtropical waters of the Pacific Ocean are home to more than 75% of the world’s coral reefs. These include the Great Barrier Reef and more remote reefs in the Coral Triangle, such as those in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

Coral reefs are bearing the brunt of climate change. We hear a lot about how coral bleaching is damaging coral ecosystems. But another insidious process, ocean acidification, is also threatening reef survival.

Ocean acidification particularly affects shallow waters, and the subarctic Pacific region is particularly vulnerable.

Coral reefs cover less than 0.5% of Earth’s surface, but house an estimated 25% of all marine species. Due to ocean acidification and other threats, these incredibly diverse “underwater rainforests” are among the most threatened ecosystems on the planet.

The Pacific is home to more than 75% of the world’s coral reefs. Victor Huertas, Author provided (No reuse)
A chemical reaction

Ocean acidification involves a decrease in the pH of seawater as it absorbs carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere.

Each year, humans emit 35 billion tonnes of CO₂ through activities such as burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

Oceans absorb up to 30% of atmospheric CO₂, setting off a chemical reaction in which concentrations of carbonate ions fall, and hydrogen ion concentrations increase. That change makes the seawater more acidic.

Since the Industrial Revolution, ocean pH has decreased by 0.1 units. This may not seem like much, but it actually means the oceans are now about 28% more acidic than since the mid-1800s. And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the rate of acidification is accelerating.

Each year, humans emit 35 billion tonnes of CO₂. Shutterstock 
Why is ocean acidification harmful?

Carbonate ions are the building blocks for coral structures and organisms that build shells. So a fall in the concentrations of carbonate ions can spell bad news for marine life.

In more acidic waters, molluscs have been shown to have trouble making and repairing their shells. They also exhibit impaired growth, metabolism, reproduction, immune function, and altered behaviours. For example, researchers exposed sea hares (a type of sea slug) in French Polynesia to simulated ocean acidification and found they had less foraging success and made poorer decisions.

Ocean acidification is also a problem for the fishes. Many studies have revealed elevated CO₂ can disrupt their sense of smell, vision and hearing. It can also impair survival traits, such as a fish’s ability to learn, avoid predators, and select suitable habitat.

Such impairment appears to be the result of changes in neurological, physiological, and molecular functions in fish brains.

Sea hares exposed to acidification made poorer decisions. Shutterstock
Predicting the winners and losers

Of the seven oceans, the Pacific and Indian Oceans have been acidifying at the fastest rates since 1991. This suggests their marine life may also be more vulnerable.

However, ocean acidification does not affect all marine species in the same way, and the effects can vary over the organism’s lifetime. So, more research to predict the future winners and losers is crucial.

This can be done by identifying inherited traits that can increase an organism’s survival and reproductive success under more acidic conditions. Winner populations may start to adapt, while loser populations should be targets for conservation and management.

One such winner may be the epaulette shark, a shallow water reef species endemic to the Great Barrier Reef. Research suggests simulated ocean acidification conditions do not impact early growth, development, and survival of embryos and neonates, nor do they affect foraging behaviours or metabolic performance of adults.

But ocean acidification is also likely to create losers on the Great Barrier Reef. For example, researchers studying the orange clownfish – a species made famous by Disney’s animated Nemo character – found they suffered multiple sensory impairments under simulated ocean acidification conditions. These ranged from difficulties smelling and hearing their way home, to distinguishing friend from foe.

Clownfish struggled to tell friend from foe when exposed to ocean acidification. Shutterstock
It’s not too late
  
More than half a billion people depend on coral reefs for food, income, and protection from storms and coastal erosion. Reefs provide jobs – such as in tourism and fishing – and places for recreation. Globally, coral reefs represent an industry worth US$11.9 trillion per year. And importantly, they’re a place of deep cultural and spiritual connection for Indigenous people around the world.

Ocean acidification is not the only threat to coral reefs. Under climate change, the rate of ocean warming has doubled since the 1990s. The Great Barrier Reef, for example, has warmed by 0.8℃ since the Industrial Revolution. Over the past five years this has caused devastating back-to-back coral bleaching events. The effects of warmer seas are magnified by ocean acidification.

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions must become a global mission. COVID-19 has slowed our movements across the planet, showing it’s possible to radically slash our production of CO₂. If the world meets the most ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement and keeps global temperature increases below 1.5℃, the Pacific will experience far less severe decreases in oceanic pH.

We will, however, have to curb emissions by a lot more – 45% over the next decade – to keep global warming below 1.5℃. This would give some hope that coral reefs in the Pacific, and worldwide, are not completely lost.

Clearly, the decisions we make today will affect what our oceans look like tomorrow.

Our decisions today will determine the fate of tomorrow’s oceans. Shutterstock

Links
at No comments:

World's Biggest Iceberg Captured By RAF Cameras

 BBC Science - Jonathan Amos
It's not really possible for one photo to convey the scale of A68a. BFSAI/Corporal Philip Dye
An RAF aircraft has obtained images of the world's biggest iceberg as it drifts through the South Atlantic.

The A400m transporter flew low over the 4,200-sq-km block, known as A68a, to observe its increasingly ragged state.

The pictures reveal multiple cracks and fissures, innumerable icy chunks that have fallen off, and what appear to be tunnels extending under the waterline.

The Antarctic berg is currently bearing down on the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia.

A68a is now just 200km from the island and there is a real possibility it could become stuck in shallow coastal waters. 

This cliff face is 30m high, but the berg probably reaches under water for 200m. BFSAI/Corporal Philip Dye


The latest satellite imagery: A68a and South Georgia are about the same size. Copernicus Sentinel data (2020)/Pierre Markuse
The British Forces South Atlantic Island (BFSAI) reconnaissance flight was sent out to assess the situation. 

"Guided by satellite tracking, the A400M can get under the weather and closer to the iceberg, enabling more detailed observations," Squadron Leader Michael Wilkinson, Officer Commanding 1312 Flt, said in a BFSAI Facebook posting.

"I know I speak on behalf of all of the crew involved when I say this is certainly a unique and unforgettable task to be involved in."

Some of the separated blocks are significant bergs in their own right. BFSAI/Corporal Philip Dye 
Satellite images acquired in recent weeks have also suggested that A68a's edges are crumbling rapidly.

Relentless wave action is breaking off countless small fragments, so-called "bergy bits" and "growlers". But some of the pieces being calved are significant objects in their own right and will need tracking because of the additional hazard they will now pose to shipping.

The A400m's new imagery - stills and video - will be analysed to try to understand how the berg might behave in the coming weeks and months. 
 
There is now a mass of icy debris around A68a. BFSAI/Corporal Philip Dye 
Although currently heading straight at South Georgia, A68a is being carried in fast-moving waters that should divert the bloc in a loop around the southern part of the island.

There is considerable interest in whether the berg might then ground on the territory's continental shelf.

Should that happen, it could cause considerable difficulties for the island's seals and penguins as they try to get out to sea to forage for fish and krill.

When A68a broke away from an ice shelf in Antarctica in July 2017, it measured nearly 6,000 sq km - about a quarter of the size of Wales. At 4,200 sq km, it now has an area closer to that of an English county like Somerset. 

Experts are surprised the iceberg hasn't lost more of its bulk. Many thought it would have shattered into several large pieces long before now. 

The flight saw what appeared to be tunnels extending under the waterline. BFSAI/Corporal Philip Dye 
With a draft of about 200m, A68a has the potential to catch on the shallow shelf around the island.

Links

at No comments:

A Race Against Time To Rescue A Reef From Climate Change

New York Times - Catrin Einhorn | Christopher Flavelle | Photographs Daniel Berehulak

In an unusual experiment, a coral reef in Mexico is now insured against hurricanes. A team of locals known as “the Brigade” rushed to repair the devastated corals, piece by piece.

Members of a team calling itself “the Brigade” work to repair hurricane-damaged corals off the coast of Mexico
When Hurricane Delta hit Puerto Morelos, Mexico, in October, a team known as the Brigade waited anxiously for the sea to quiet. The group, an assortment of tour guides, diving instructors, park rangers, fishermen and researchers, needed to get in the water as soon as possible. The coral reef that protects their town — an undersea forest of living limestone branches that blunted the storm’s destructive power — had taken a beating.

Now it was their turn to help the reef, and they didn’t have much time.

“We’re like paramedics,” said María del Carmen García Rivas, director of the national park that manages the reef and a leader of the Brigade. When broken corals roll around and get buried in the sand, they soon die. But pieces can be saved if they are fastened back onto the reef.

“The more days that pass, the less chance they have of survival,” she said.

The race to repair the reef is more than an ecological fight; it’s also a radical experiment in finance. The reef could be the first natural structure in the world with its own insurance policy, according to environmental groups and insurance companies. And Hurricane Delta’s force triggered the first payout — about $850,000 to be used for the reef’s repairs.

The success or failure of this experiment could determine whether communities around the world start using a new tool that marries nature and finance to protect against the effects of climate change. The response to Delta was a first test.

When the Brigade laid eyes on their reef, which runs 28 kilometers south of Cancún and is home to critically endangered elkhorn coral, it looked ransacked. Structures the size of bathtubs were flipped upside down. Coral stalks lay like felled trees. Countless smaller fragments of broken coral coated the seafloor.

On the boat, cement mixers prepared a special paste that snorkelers ferried down to divers who spent hours underwater carefully fastening pieces back on the reef. They used inflatable bags to turn over large formations rolled by the storm and collected fragments to seed new colonies. 

María del Carmen García Rivas en route to the damaged reef.
A rainstorm approached Cancún hotels just north of the reef in November.
The Brigade’s members, mostly volunteers, delighted in the bright damselfish that darted into restored crevices even before the paste had hardened. But there was so much to do and so little time.

At the end of a grueling day, Tamara Adame, a diving instructor and guide, wondered if the tiny team could make a dent. “Is it actually going to make a difference that I’m here all day picking up the pieces?” she asked herself.

‘Like water in the desert’

Just as a house is insured against fire, or a car against crashes, last year a 167-kilometer stretch of the coast, including the reef, was insured against hurricanes with a wind speed of 100 knots or greater, which is a Category 3 storm.

It didn’t take long for the policy to pay off: Hurricane Delta slammed into the reef in October. The governor of the state of Quintana Roo announced the payout on Facebook Live: 17 million pesos.

Ideally, reefs wouldn’t need such interventions. After all, they’ve been surviving hurricanes for millennia.

But in Quintana Roo, like so many parts of the world, humans have weakened coral, tiny tentacled animals that secrete layers of limestone to build outer skeletons for themselves. Rising sea temperatures, ocean acidification, sewage pollution and overfishing leave coral more vulnerable to hurricane damage.

And hurricanes themselves are becoming more severe because of climate change. This year, the Atlantic has seen the most named storms on record.

Environmentalists and insurance companies behind the effort hope it becomes a model for protecting other far-flung coastlines, whether in Florida or Indonesia, insuring not just coral reefs but also mangroves, salt marshes and other natural barriers to storms. These nature-based defenses protect coastal properties and biodiversity all at once.

“Having this insurance policy is really like water in the desert,” said Efraín Villanueva Arcos, the environment secretary for Quintana Roo, who leads a trust that determines how the money gets spent. Without it, he said, the government would have struggled to fund the repair work.

Brigade members mixed the special paste used by divers to reattach broken coral.
A diver collected sand to be used in the paste.
Some scientists and environmentalists point to philosophical and practical concerns. They protest that the policy reduces the reef to a commodity. It diverts money to private companies that could instead be spent directly to protect the local people and environment. It can’t address longer-term threats from climate change that are killing the reef anyway. 

But “if we want to move the needle on how we are impacting nature,” said Fernando Secaira, a specialist on climate risk and resilience at the Nature Conservancy who helped bring about the insurance policy, “we need to move into economic terms.”

Every piece ‘a possible colony’

“Brigade, we will try to save as much as we can,” Dr. García Rivas wrote on the group’s WhatsApp chain, trying to rally her exhausted team for the next long day. “Each fragment is a possible colony, keep it up!!!!!!!”

Locals had volunteered boats, food and themselves, but she needed more of everything. And she figured they had only one short month to complete the first phase — repairing, stabilizing and collecting broken corals — before those pieces would be too far gone to save. And while she heard the insurance money was coming, how quickly would it arrive?

To cover immediate costs for fuel and food, Mr. Secaira of the Nature Conservancy had approved $1,000 from a different fund, and Dr. García Rivas fronted money from her own pocket. “Luckily I don’t have kids to feed, so I had some savings,” she said.

The Brigade was created in 2018. Its members joined as volunteers, but the idea was that if a hurricane hit, money from a payout would help tide them over while tourists stayed away.

The Covid-19 pandemic, however, complicated everything. Tourism had been dead for months before Hurricane Delta struck, but just as reef restoration began, visitors started trickling back. That meant some Brigade members, such as Ms. Adame, the diving instructor, suddenly had clients again. “I couldn’t refuse the work,” she said. “I really needed the income.”

A balloon is used to right a big piece of broken coral.
She could spend only two days with the Brigade. In fact, of the Brigade’s 36 members, less than half were participating on any given day.

The depleted volunteers completed 11 days of restoration work before a new hurdle stopped them: Another hurricane, Zeta, began hurtling toward the Gulf of Mexico. It made landfall as a Category 1 storm — not enough for a payout, even though locals said it lashed the coast harder.

Then, Zeta was followed immediately by even more bad weather, keeping them out of the water for an agonizing 13 days. Brigade members feared their work would be lost.

As soon as the port reopened, they sped to the areas of the reef where they had spent the most time on repairs. Parts were so battered that Dr. García Rivas had trouble recognizing where she was.

“I felt powerless,” she said, “confused by so much disaster.” But closer inspection showed that while the reef’s periphery was a mess, some of their work in the center had withstood the second hurricane. “When I saw the fragments that we had glued still standing in place, I had a feeling of hope,” she said.

They got to work again.

Would anyone buy it?

Back in 2015, Kathy Baughman McLeod, who was then director of climate risk and resilience at the Nature Conservancy, asked a profound question: Could you design an insurance policy for a coral reef?

On its face, the idea might have seemed absurd. For starters, nobody owns a reef, so who would even buy the policy? And it’s not easy assessing the damage to something that’s underwater.

But Ms. Baughman McLeod, along with Alex Kaplan, then a senior executive at Swiss Re, a leading insurance company, came up with workarounds. First, the policy could be purchased by those who benefit from the reef — in this case, the state of Quintana Roo, which is also home to Cancún and Tulum and has a tourism economy estimated at more than $9 billion.

“Without that reef, there’s no beach,” Mr. Kaplan said. “Without that beach, there’s no tourists.”

Second, rather than basing the payout on reef damage, it could be triggered by something far easier to measure: The storm’s wind speed. The stronger the wind, the worse the assumed damage to the reef.

The idea of putting a dollar value on a reef or ecosystem by identifying a “service” that it provides has become increasingly popular. For example, coastal salt marshes protect from flooding — offering economic benefits on top of environmental ones. Peat bogs store vast amounts of carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere where it would worsen global warming. And coral reefs reduce the energy of waves by 97 percent, protecting coastal properties.

Divers prepared to ferry paste to the reef in November.

Reefs can reduce the potential for waves to cause damage during storms, but face many threats.
But this notion of “ecosystem services” is controversial in some circles.

“It’s a popular concept because it commodifies nature and it allows people to put a dollar value on nature,” said Terry Hughes, who directs a center for coral reef studies at James Cook University in Australia. “But it’s very anthropocentric and it’s certainly not about protecting nature for nature’s worth. It’s almost kind of selfish.”

If you look at it from the reef’s perspective, Dr. Hughes said, hurricanes are the least of its problems. Climate change, coastal pollution and overfishing are far greater threats.

But given the scale of the planet’s intertwined environmental emergencies — not only climate change but the collapse in biodiversity — conservationists say they must be pragmatic. More than a million species are at risk of extinction, including many coral species.

And in Puerto Morelos, monetizing the reef had the almost ironic consequence of helping some in the community understand that it is actually invaluable. “My experience with the Brigade has changed my thinking so much,” said Alejandro Chan, who takes tourists sport fishing and snorkeling. “I have to help the reef.”

Still, any money governments spend on insurance premiums is money that can’t go toward reducing greenhouse emissions or directly helping people prepare for the next storm, said Zac Taylor, a research fellow at K.U. Leuven, a university in Belgium, who studies the intersection of finance and climate risk.

Dr. Taylor also questioned whether insurers will keep offering such policies if the bigger threat, climate change, which generates worsening hurricanes, isn’t brought under control. “Will they stick around?” Dr. Taylor asked.

Boats from the Brigade above the reef in November.
Brigade members at work.
Setbacks and success

By early December, even the corals broken by Zeta were barely healthy enough to save. Still, the Brigade pressed ahead. So far its members have braced or cemented almost 12,500 fragments, and turned over or stabilized more than 2,000 larger coral formations.

“Champion Brigade!!!!!” Dr. García Rivas cheered on WhatsApp.

But their efforts exposed the scale of the challenge in responding to reefs after hurricanes. They exhausted themselves patching up vital but limited sections. Another team in Cancún performed a much smaller intervention there.

And the insurance money itself faced delays that hindered the work. It took two or three weeks for the government to receive the payout, and then almost another month for the trust, made up of government officials along with a representative from the tourism industry, to decide how to distribute it.

“If the insurance money had been available in a timely manner,” said Claudia Padilla, a researcher at the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Institute in Mexico, which developed the Brigade’s hurricane response protocols and trained its members, “the results of the rescue effort could have been greatly multiplied.”

Still, the money will be put to its intended purpose of restoration, funding longer-term projects like seeding of new colonies and replenishment of reef biodiversity. And Mr. Secaira of the Nature Conservancy believes that the rest of the world will use Quintana Roo as proof of concept.

Indeed, as the Brigade was at work in Puerto Morelos, a bill in Guam’s Legislature sought to evaluate insuring a reef there. Training is underway in other locations in Mexico, Belize and Honduras.

But it won’t be easy. The training in Honduras had to be postponed when the country was hit by two hurricanes, Eta and Iota, within just two weeks. They were the Atlantic Ocean’s 28th and 30th named storms of the year. 


Links
at No comments: