Word: reefs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...August 7, researchers at the University of North Carolina released the world's first comprehensive study on coral in the Indo-Pacific region, which stretches from Japan to Australia and east to Hawaii, and is home to 75% of the world's coral reefs. The outlook is grim. Between 1968 and 2003, more than 600 sq. mi. of reef disappeared in the region - that's 1% a year, twice the pace of rainforest decline - and the losses are hitting well-protected areas like the Great Barrier Reef just as hard as the stressed, overfished reefs that surround crowded countries like...
...report coincides with separate accounts of another widespread scourge: in July, coral reefs in the South China Sea and around the Florida Keys and Caribbean started to bleach - a result of warming waters. Healthy reefs live symbiotically with algae, which takes shelter inside the coral and, in return, passes nutrients to its host. When waters reach an uncomfortably high temperature, coral gets stressed and kicks the algae out, which turns the coral white and essentially starves it to death. Local reef watchers have contacted the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) from the northern Philippines to southern Japan, some...
Like the busily receding glaciers in the Arctic, coral reefs are a canary in the global warming coal mine. "They are a sensitive species that are affected first," says C. Mark Eakin, coordinator of NOAA's Coral Reef Watch program, which warns scientists when their part of the world is at risk for bleaching. And though climate change awareness is up, and embattled reefs do get moments of compassion, the public has a short attention span when it comes to ecosystems it can't see. So do policy makers. Bruno says more coral data is being gathered today...
That's why he founded Reef Check. Realizing that one man's chore might be another's hobby, Hodgson decided to fill the information gap by enlisting people who were naturally interested: divers. In 1997 he created a global network of volunteer snorkelers and divers, specially trained by scientists to monitor reefs using a standardized checklist. Over the last 10 years, Reef Check's volunteers have amassed a bounty of data on the world's coral. "In the beginning, people were looking down on us, saying 'Oh, you guys are just volunteers,'" Hodgson recalls. Now, Reef Check has become...
...need to monitor coral so closely? Coral reefs constitute a complex and vast global ecosystem, home to millions of species of plants and fish that people depend on for food and tourist revenue; in some areas, healthy reefs help protect the shore from potentially destructive waves. But arguments about the preservation of biodiversity make eyes glaze over, so Hodgson, who's trying to get coral on the World Conservation Union's red and endangered species lists, likes to point out that several anticancer drugs are derived from reef species. "Maybe one day a coral will save your life," Hodgson tells...