Fishing helps many communities earn a living. In Islands , where ninety percent of people get their income through fishing, Coral reefs are vital.

The coral reefs have also the highest biodiversity of any marine system. The growing human populations , who rely on them for their livelihoods, derive economic benefits

Recent global increases in reef degradation suggest that both the rate and nature of recent environmental changes are exceeding the capacity of coral reefs to adapt. This can lead to reefs being displaced by sea weeds and other non reef systems. Such ecosystem shifts are already well advanced in the Caribbean region, where two of the major reef-building coral species have been devastated by disease. In the Indo-Pacific region, repeated episodes of lethal bleaching' suggest that reefs cannot recover sufficiently between such events.

This crisis is almost certainly the result of interactions
between pressure from local human populations and
global climatic stresses. The former includes direct
destruction, coastal habitat modification, contamination, over-harvesting, and increased nutrient and sediment build-ups. The latter includes rising ocean temperatures implicated in chronic stress and disease epidemics, as well as mass coral-bleaching episodes and reduction in necessary calcium levels, which provides the building blocks of coral reefs. Increasing atmospheric CO2 levels can also inhibit calcification. These stresses may interact with each other and exacerbate other stresses like disease and predation. As with many ecosystems, it
is difficult to separate the effects of global climate
and local, non-climate impacts.

Research into adaptation and recovery mechanisms and enhanced monitoring of coral reef environments will help us to learn from and influence the course of events rather than simply observe the decline. A significant step would be an international network of marine-protected areas to provide refuges for future generations of coral reef organisms. Yet, even with such efforts, recent degradation of coral ecosystems combined with future climate change will pose a significant challenge to the global sustainability of coral reefs.

Although climate change has the potential to yield some benefits for certain coral species in specific regions, most of the effects of climate change are stressful rather than beneficial. Continued climate change will almost
certainly cause further degradation of coral reefs,
which will be even more devastating in combination
with the continuing non-climate stresses that will
almost certainly increase in magnitude and
frequency.

Learn more about this author, Muyanga Ziba.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

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