Crunch time for Caribbean corals | WPN World People News

Average live coral cover on Caribbean reefs has declined to just 8% of the reef today, compared with more than 50% in the 1970s according to the report’s findings. Furthermore, rates of decline on most reefs show no signs of slowing, although the deterioration of live coral cover on more remote reefs in the Netherlands Antilles, Cayman Islands and elsewhere is less marked—with up to 30% cover still surviving. These areas are less exposed to human impact as well as to natural disasters such as hurricanes.

Grouper peeking through a sea fan coral

Bloody Henry starfish (henricia oculata), In Isles of Scilly Marine Protected Area, UK, in August 2012.

“The major causes of coral decline are well known and include overfishing, pollution, disease and bleaching caused by rising temperatures resulting from the burning of fossil fuels,” says Carl Gustaf Lundin, Director of IUCN’s Global Marine and Polar Programme. “Looking forward, there is an urgent need to immediately and drastically reduce all human impacts if coral reefs and the vitally important fisheries that depend on them are to survive in the decades to come.”

An exceptionally large and increasingly rare brain coral, Bahamas

A black grouper, Mycteroperca bonaci, photographed in the Caribbean

IUCN is calling for strictly enforced local action to improve the health of corals, including limits on fishing through catch quotas, an extension of marine protected areas (MPAs), a halt to nutrient runoff from land and a reduction on the global reliance on fossil fuels. Through the IUCN-coordinated Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), there are also moves to strengthen the data available concerning coral reef decline at a worldwide level.

Source:International Union for Conservation of Nature