Will you still be able to see the beauty that is the coral reef?
Monday, June 1st, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
This has been a question for years and years. We need to find out why the coral reef is shrinking and what can be done to help? Everybody knows of something that is affecting the coral reefs, but not everything is so clear, somethings we need to find out about.
Interestingly the Caribbean contains just over 20% of the world’s coral reef and there is a huge amount of damage being done to it. Honduras is a place where they grow several different plantains including bananas, these require a lot of fertilizer. The fertilizer has nutrients that prevent coral growth and are deadly to fish. Fertilizer, pesticides and erosion do the most damage to the coral reef and the surrounding inhabitants. The fish in the ocean are key to the survival of the coral reefs, although a lot of people dont really know this. Fish provide coral with the necessary grooming that it needs, this takes off bacteria that damage the coral and keep it clean, they also eat seaweed, and seaweed suffocates coral and any other plants around it by drawing in all the oxygen.
Apparently fish have dropped in population rates by around 70-95%, a massive fall. Over-fishing isn’t only destroying our food source; it is damaging the coral reef as well.
Another problem is an obvious one, Global Warming. This is the big one, rises in global warming have created acids in the sea and reduced the amount of Aragonite. This is a carbonate mineral that coral requires to stay alive and even begin growth. It is said that in about 40 years the acid levels will be too high to sustain coral and it will stop growing.
However there are few things that we can do to try and help. We can take part in some activities abroad, that allow us to get stuck in with the cleaning of the coral and enjoy ourselves as well. If you do go on luxury holidays or Caribbean holidays you could have the option to go and volunteer for a coral clean up operation, where you can help clean coral underwater or on the shore. This isn’t just rewarding, you can have a good time while you do it too.
Also if you go fishing around coral, try not to drop anchor, you will tear the coral apart and damage anything living around it
So if your thinking about going abroad or maybe somewhere tropical, maybe some of you want to have weddings abroad, it might be a good idea to get there as soon as you can. If you want you could chip in with the divers and help the coral survive, you never know how much longer it will be around.
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