Coral Reef Deforestation

Coral reefs are greatly hurt by tourism. When tourism first began, people had little regard for the delicate balance in the reefs. They would often break off parts of the coral to keep as souvenirs, damaging the area and hurting both the corals and the fish or other animals that relied on it. While humans today are more aware of the damage they cause, regular visitations can still create great damage by snorkelers or divers accidentally hitting and damaging the reefs.

Coral reefs not only protect coastlines and beaches from wave damage and erosion, but also are the basis for the fishing and tourism industries. Dying reefs is a worldwide problem, and evidence shows that 10% of the entire world’s coral has died, and 60% will die by 2020 if existing conditions continue (NOAA 2000). The reason that the Australian Great Barrier Reef is so important is because not only is it the largest barrier reef in the world, but it is also one of the most evolved models of how to best manage and protect the world’s largest reef system (Ornitz 1996). It extends for 2,340 kilometers (km), covers 345,000 square km and contains 2,900 reefs, 300 coral cays and 600 continental islands (White 1999). Historically, it has been ahead of the rest of the world in terms of recognizing and addressing problems associated with reef degradation.

What if all the coral reefs of the world vanished or died? According to Karen Kirkpatrick of How Stuff Works, if the coral reefs of the world vanished completely, experts have predicted that hunger, poverty and political instability would occur as the livelihoods of up to 500 million people and the livelihoods of some entire countries would disappear (Kirkpatrick). Recently, an online story by Outside magazine said The Great Barrier Reef or the GBR was dead. This article went viral and caused much debate and outrage among scientists and the general public. The Great Barrier Reef is located off the coast of Australia and is the largest coral reef system in the world. It is home to unique plant

Located in tropical ocean waters, coral reefs provide priceless resources to both human and marine life. The leading natural cause of destruction among the coral reefs is global warming. Other natural causes are earthquakes, hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons. The destruction to the coral reefs from these natural disasters is minimal compared to the dangers caused by man. Man-made destruction has a much wider impact on the health of the coral reefs. This destruction includes over-fishing, damage from anchors, aquarium industry, overgrowth of seaweed, and being smothered by sediments.

Conservationists around the world are putting their best foot forward in an attempt to save the coral reefs. Coral reefs today are at a high risk of damage because of all the attention drawn to them by tourists. There are some islands that make all their money through tourism and exploiting the coral reefs, giving snorkel and scuba diving trips to guests that have traveled from around the world. Many people travel to these places with amazing under water worlds and they come extremely uneducated about these beautiful masterpieces. Tourists will drop their anchors on top of corals and drive their boats over corals, causing severe damage that will take the coral years and years to replenish. There are always new ways to enhance the lives of the

Do you ever get stressed out when you lose something important at the wrong time? A person who has an explanation for this is Daniel Levitin. Levitin believed that you should always look ahead in life, so you can prevent yourself from failing this is called pre-mortem which reduces stress and damage. I agree with his analysis because I personally have a bad habit of not remembering where I park my car. I don’t know why this happens to me, but unfortunately it does. Sometimes people wonder, why is this guy going back and forth? I really hope that no one thinks that I’m going to rob their car the next time I’m walking in the parking lot. If I could prevent myself from losing my car, then I would be fine. Levitin explained three issues that should help you look ahead in life, so you won’t fail. First he talked about pre-mortem and cortisol, next Levitin explained a part of our brain called the

Of those threats, climate change is the one that has the biggest impact on the reef. The rising temperatures are causing bleaching.When water is too warm, corals will expel the algae, called zooxanthellae, living in their tissues causing the coral to turn completely white (NNOA). Without it, the coral starves, but doesn’t have to die. It can recover from this, but has a higher fatality rate than corals who didn’t go through the bleaching process. The poor water quality is a result of increasing sediment, nutrients and contaminants entering coastal waters in run-off from agricultural, industrial and urban land uses (“Poor Water Quality”). The nutrients and sediments boost algae growth, which effects the corals growth. Overfishing is the final major threat. Once the fisherman catch most of the fish in the area, they must go lower. This leads to them hitting the coral and causing further damage. Although they have these threats, they can overcome it to continue to

Finally, there are millions of species who live in the coral reef. It is used both for shelter and for a food supply. There is a vast amount of trawlers that come through each year to dredge the ocean. But think about what would happen if the coral reefs disappear. All the species that depend on the reef for shelter would die. And all the species who hunt for food there would also die. Dredging the ocean rips apart the coral reefs wether that was meant to happen or not. If the natural beauty of the reefs and the security it brings to animals dissapeared, it would be a major

There is no doubt that the leaking of 130 million gallons of oil threw off the ecosystem. As a base of the ecosystem, coral reef death could largely affect all marine life in any part of food chain in the long-term. Ecosystems can be extremely sensitive to the smallest changes and the death of the coral reefs has been linked to reduced ecosystem

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef in the world. According to Lewis (2016), it covers more than 300,000 square kilometers and has more than 3,000 reefs, 600 islands, and 300 coral cays. (Immediate response on social media section, para. 4). Because of high sea temperatures, the algae on the coral become stressed and release from the coral, which causes coral bleaching. As the coral reef is normally bright with color, the bleaching has caused the coral to become dull and lifeless. The marine life use this coral for shelter and food. Without the live coral reefs, the fish are dying of illness, variety of species are disappearing, and economy businesses are not productive.

The corals are dying the have a problem name Bleaching of coral and is too difficult that the become better. The humans are destroying all, nature is

    Coral reef destruction is a big deal. There are many environmental threats on coral reefs which means they are slowly dying. Coral reefs play a very important part in marine ecosystems. Sea creatures depend on them for protection, camouflage, as a home, and also for food. Scientists believe this could be from natural causes like erosion, and global warming as reasons that coral reefs die off but one of the main reasons is pollution. There are many different ways pollution can affect coral reefs. There is a chemical in sunscreen called oxybenzone that may be contributing to the destruction of coral reefs as swimmers are trying to protect their skin. This chemical has toxic effects on young coral that can damage their DNA,

Corals build colonies that secrete calcium carbonate to form ocean reefs. When they're healthy, coral reefs provide shelter and food for animals all along the food chain, including the top: us. Across the planet, half a billion people rely, directly and indirectly, on corals for their living. That's why what happens to the 9,000-year-old Great Barrier Reef, as well as to other reefs worldwide, is critical. The floods in Queensland have hurt the Great Barrier Reef by funnelling into the ocean vast plumes of freshwater and agricultural runoff that could severely damage the coral. Besides the extreme rain that sparked the floods, rising ocean temperatures, changes to the ocean's chemistry and the global trade in natural resources — all symptoms of our fossil-fuel economy — are waging a multiform war on the marine

The chance to recover these reefs is now. One example of it already being too late is in Hong Kong, Singapore, Manila. All these locations had thriving beautiful reefs a long time ago, but human impact has destroyed the infrastructure of the reefs and there is just a barren wasteland except for select hardy fish that live off of what is left. When I say human impact, an example of this is the sale of coral skeletons. The residents of China and surrounding areas would go out into the reef with dynamite. The fisher man would take the dynamite and wedge it into the reef and light the fuse. The reef would be blown into manageable pieces and then taken to the port to be dipped in bleach and put on the market as decoration. Another practice that is used is the use of cyanide on the reefs. This practice is still used today in order to supply the aquarium market with exotic fish that are too hard to catch. How the practice works is the fisherman will take a diluted solution of cyanide and dose the whole reef. If this is done correctly, the fish will not die, but become temporarily paralyzed so they can be picked up in a net and brought onto the boat. The fish will then be transferred to store and be put on sale in a crowded tank until someone takes them home. The larger fish are never targeted for aquarium homes due to the size and lack of demand. When you have an ecosystem as complicated as a reef, taking out chunks of the food chain will only have very negative impacts. The reefs

The deterioration of coral reefs is mainly linked to human activities – 88% of coral reefs are threatened through various reasons as