Coral Reef Excursion
Coral reefs cover about 280,000 km of the ocean and suppoe thousands of creatures. 10% of the reefs have been damaged. In the Philpines 70% of the feefs have been destroyed and only 5% is in good condtion. Why? Human population.
How?
Destructive fishing- cyanide fishing, blaste or dinamite fishing, bottom trawing
Overfishing- effects ecological balance
Carless tourism- carless boating, diving-->> people touching reefs, stirring up sediment, collecting, dropping anchores, bulinding on top, sewage
Pollution- urban and industrial waste, agrochemicals, oil pollution,
Sedementiation- erosion by construction
Coral mining- live coral is removed from reefs for bricks
Climate change- cant survive in high temps. Global warming leds coral bleeding increase. Takes out struggling reefs
IMPORTANCE
Protects fish
control how much carbon dioxide is in water
procects coast from strong currents, orotcts barriers between ocean and shore
They want to help
People lobby the US congress as well and govts from other nations trying to convince not to buy fish that were caugh by coral destruction.
visiters not to harm them
Coral Reef Alliance, Reef Relief, and Planatery Coral Reef Foundation
Others study them by looking at the dead ones