Word: reefs
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...destructive cycle of overfishing began when coastal villagers started stripping nearshore reefs of giant clams, groupers and other large fish. Then the fishermen upped their productivity by a novel but frighteningly destructive practice: blasting the reefs with dynamite and scooping up the dead fish. Now they have adopted what may be the most insidious fishing method of all. Sustained by hoselike "hookahs" and portable air compressors, Philippine divers are hunting down big reef fish, stunning them with cyanide and hauling them to the surface alive. The practice allows traders to supply Chinese restaurants with the live fish their affluent customers...
...good news is that the Philippine government has started to crack down on dynamite and cyanide fishing. The bad news is that those destructive practices are just the latest in a string of insults to reefs, and not necessarily the most serious. Far more troubling to biologists is the fact that groupers and other valuable reef fish are being harvested at a critical point in their reproductive cycle. With satellite navigation systems to guide them, fishing boats are homing in on areas where large numbers of the fish have gathered to spawn. Already, says University of Hong Kong fish biologist...
...rouse public concern, marine scientists and environmental activists have proclaimed 1997 the International Year of the Reef. They have persuaded the U.S. and other major countries to support a conservation offensive called the International Coral Reef Initiative. And perhaps most important, they have launched an ambitious project called the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, which will conduct the first surveys of the earth's estimated 400,000 sq. mi. of reef, including remote atolls no scientist has ever seen...
...Modern reef-building corals are descendants of organisms that first appeared in the fossil record 225 million years ago. These ancient carnivores, cousins of sea anemones and jellyfish, boast stinging cells and tentacles for stunning and capturing prey. But while corals have survived the onset of major ice ages and variations in sea level of hundreds of feet, there are limits to the conditions they can tolerate. For example, they cannot build reefs in water colder than 60[degrees] F or in murky depths. They live in symbiotic relationships with colonies of tiny algae called zooxanthellae that depend...
Nowhere in the world have they been subject to more abuse than in the Philippines, says University of the Philippines marine scientist Edgardo Gomez. According to environmentalists, a staggering 90% of the archipelago's 13,000 sq. mi. of reef is dead or deteriorating. Among other things, Philippine reefs are being buried by tons of soil that washes from deforested tracts of land. They are also being damaged by pollution that seeps from factories, farm fields and sewers. But above all they are being destroyed by too much fishing...