Corals are animal, not vegetable of course. Tiny creatures known as polyps feed on plankton and excrete calcium carbonate deposits, which over millennia grow to form the magical coral gardens we know today. Bleaching is a stress response to increases in temperature, where coral polyps expel algae known as zooxanthelae, the symbiotic organisms they rely upon for photosynthesis. Without them, the carbonate structures fade to skeletal white.
Right now we are facing a global bleaching episode on an unprecedented scale, as the severest El Nino in history takes its toll on reefs around the world. We don’t yet know the extent of the damage, but it is expected to far exceed the 1998 bleaching episode, when scientists estimate we lost 11% of the planet’s reef coverage. It seems that the reefs in Papua and some other parts of the Coral Triangle may be more resilient to fluctuations in temperature and so better able to withstand the impacts of climate change.
Climate is clearly the biggest problem – but it’s exacerbated by destructive overfishing fishing, coastal development and pollution. The Coral Triangle currently supports the livelihoods of 120 million people as well as satisfying much of the world’s appetite for seafood. And much like the Amazon, it is buckling under human pressure. From a human perspective, the Coral Triangle is highly resource rich, supporting industries worth billions of dollars from tuna and live reef fisheries to tourism services. Sadly, in most areas, these industries are far from sustainable.
Besides destructive yet legitimate fishing methods like bottom trawling – literally scraping the seabed and seeing what comes up – less conventional approaches are also popular in the Coral Triangle. Through the eighties and nineties, homemade bombs were the preferred choice amongst many fishermen. These require nothing more than a glass bottle, a box of matches, some fertilizer, and a little ingenuity to build. It can take thousands of years for a reef to grow, but only seconds to destroy one.
28 - SEVENSEAS