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  PBS Online Focus, 1 Feb 05
see also their page on coral reefs
streaming video and real/audio links
Dying Reefs
Disappearing coral reefs
What's killing coral reefs?
Saving coral reefs
Establishing an ocean policy

Excerpts
JIM LEHRER: What's killing the world's coral reefs, and what can be done to save them? Many scientists think the devastation caused by the recent tsunami might have been less severe if the coral reefs in South Asia had been in better shape and more able to protect the coastlines. Betty Ann Bowser has our science unit report.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: On the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia, marine researcher Mary Wakeford methodically takes measurements and underwater pictures to see if the corals that live there are growing or continue to die.

Scientists all over the globe are watching what's happening here because this is the largest coral reef system in the world, stretching out some 1,400 miles. Wakeford's boss is Australian Institute of Marine Science Biologist Terry Done, an expert on coral reefs.

TERRY DONE: I'm quite worried that in a few decades there may be far poorer reefs.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Ten thousand miles away in the oceans off the Florida Keys, Marine Sanctuary Manager Billy Causey and Biologist Kim Ritchie also examine the coral. And like his colleagues half a world away, Causey doesn't like what he sees.

BILLY CAUSEY: Some days I come out here and I just want to cry. And I've been visiting this reef for well over 30 years, and I've seen enormous decline in the last 15 years.

Disappearing coral reefs

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The coral reefs of the world are disappearing at alarming rates. Some scientists are so concerned that they believe if nothing is done coral reefs will be gone from the Earth in 50 years. Marine biologist Sylvia Earle is executive director of the Global Marine Program for Conservation International.

SYLVIA EARLE: People need to understand that coral reefs as a reflection of the health of the ocean as a whole is an indication that our life support system, the ocean, is in trouble. And if it's in trouble, we're in trouble.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Marine scientists around the world say coral reefs are dying because of what they call "the big three"-- over fishing, pollution from the land, and global warming. Billy Causey knows the dangers of the big three from experience. As manager of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary for 21 years, he's watched with alarm at what over fishing has done.

What's killing coral reefs?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: One of the things Aquarius scientists are seeing is disease, a major cause of coral death in the Keys.

BILLY CAUSEY: In a month's time frame it appears to me that I'm seeing more coral diseases here. We saw black band disease, we saw a number of different types of diseases that scientists are still working on, and it was very disturbing to me.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Of all the things that are killing the coral reefs, it is global warming that has scientists around the world most concerned because it is actually heating up the water. Even a subtle temperature increase of one degree can kill the microscopic algae inside the corals, which turns the coral bright white.

TERRY DONE: The science tells us that it is climate change which is killing coral reefs. The water is getting hotter; the corals are basically being cooked by these very hot waters because they live right close to the edge of their tolerance already. And we hope that they can adapt fast enough, but it may be a forlorn hope. There's no evidence that they are really likely to adapt as quickly as we would hope.

Saving coral reefs

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Experts like Done say the science is clear: They know what is killing coral reefs of the world. The question for them now is: what people do with that knowledge. Paul Marshall is a biologist with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

PAUL MARSHALL: Science is essential to saving coral reefs, but science doesn't actually result in change. The agents of change are risk-management agencies, policymakers, and the people who use the reef day to day.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Last summer Australia took the science and did something unprecedented. The government set aside more than one-third of the Great Barrier Reef, and made it off- limits to fishing. New regulations to halt the flow of land-based pollution onto the reef were also imposed. From now on, in this new, so-called "no-take zone," an area half the size of Texas, visitors may look but they may not touch. In 1989, Australia experimented with setting aside about five percent of the Great Barrier Reef. Wheeler Reef was in that original set-aside. Nothing has been taken away from here in 15 years. We interviewed Terry Done 60 miles off the Australian coast at low tide, when Wheeler Reef forms a sandbar for a few hours a day. Done says the health of this reef is evidence that set asides work.

TERRY DONE: What I'm seeing here is a reef which is, to my way of looking it's intact - as well as being stunningly beautiful, it's somehow ecologically intact; it's got all the -- all the options open to it for feedback, symbiosis, redundancies. If one species goes down, there's very likely something with a similar function will be able to come up.

Establishing an ocean policy

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The American coral reefs off the coast of Florida are big business; they're the number one diving and sport-fishing destination in the world, supporting a $1 billion a year tourist industry. But the U.S. has no national ocean policy regulating its coral reefs. And when marine scientists tried to get the federal government to protect reefs off the Florida coast, the idea was met with angry opposition. John Ogden is a Florida marine scientist.

JOHN OGDEN: We have been living. It is exactly like the land -- the Oklahoma land rush of 1879. Everybody's out there. "I'm going to get mine." "I own it, it's mine, but I have no responsibility for it." And that has to change. We have to become stewards of this, as we are in fact of the land.

BILLY CAUSEY: If we were able to set 33 percent of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary aside, and protect the corals that are more resilient to protect corals for future generations, that would be a major management step forward; and it is something that would benefit our coral reefs enormously.

TERRY DONE: Without global climate change, it would be a reasonable expectation for us to think that reefs would be continuing to suffer their natural disturbances and bounce back to something like we've expected to see in our lifetimes. And what scientists are concerned about with global warming is that that ability to bounce back will be taken away simply because the insults will become too frequent and too severe.

STEVEN MILLER: If we lose coral reefs, you know, it's the same answer: What happens if we lose the rain forests? You know, what do we lose? We lose a lot. We lose something -- we lose the most dramatic and spectacular ecosystem on this planet. When it's gone, it's gone.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: In the past two years, two American blue ribbon commissions have called on the federal government to establish a national policy for the oceans.

JIM LEHRER: In a future report, we'll look at why the medical world is interested in the world's coral reefs.
links
Deep Sea Chemicals Looking to nature for medical discoveries What generates the medical properties Medical applications
PBS Online Focus, 16 Feb 05 with links to streaming video and real/audio.
Related articles on Global issues: global warming issues, policies
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Related articles on Global issues: tsunami and the environment Media and other articles discussing the role of mangroves and coral reefs in mitigating the effect and the impact on the natural environment and the people that depend on them.
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