Blueprint For Rescuing America's Troubled Coral Reefs - Florida Keys
Keys Treasures
Coral Reefs
An international team of marine ecologists is urging the United States
to take immediate action to save its fragile coral reefs. Their message
is contained a strongly worded essay titled, "Are U.S. Coral Reefs on
the Slippery Slope to Slime?" that appears in the March 18 edition of
the journal Science.
"We're frustrated with how slowly things are moving with coral reef
conservation in the United States," said Fiorenza Micheli, an assistant
professor of biological sciences at Stanford University's Hopkins
Marine Station. "Tiny steps are being taken, but they really don't
address the overall problem."
Micheli and Stanford graduate student Carrie Kappel are among 11
researchers from the United States and Australia who co-authored the
Science essay, which focused on America's two major coral reef systems
in Hawaii and Florida.
Florida's coral reef barrier stretches some 200 miles along the Florida
Keys and plays an important role in the state's economy. "Annual
revenues from reef tourism are $1.6 billion, but the economic future of
the Keys is gloomy owing to accelerating ecological degradation," the
authors noted. "Florida's reefs are well over halfway toward ecological
extinction...Large predatory fishes continue to decrease, reefs are
increasingly dominated by seaweed and alarming diseases have emerged."
In 1990, the U.S. government established the Florida Keys National
Marine Sanctuary to protect the reef--third longest in the world behind
Australia and Belize. But pollution, overfishing, disease and thermal
stress caused by climate change remain significant problems throughout
the sanctuary, according to the authors. "Conversion of 16,000
cesspools to centralized sewage treatment and control of other
land-based pollution have only just begun," they noted, and only 6
percent of sanctuary waters have been set aside as "no take zones"
where fishing is prohibited.
In contrast, the neighboring countries of Cuba and the Bahamas have
agreed to conserve 20 percent of their coral reef ecosystems, while
Australia recently zoned one-third of its massive Great Barrier Reef as
"no take" in an attempt to reverse further ecological decline.
Read More here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050323120043.htm