SOUTH ARI ATOLL, Maldives [islands off of the tip of India] - There were startling colors here just a year ago, a dazzling
array of life beneath the waves. Now this Maldivian reef is dead, killed
by the stress of rising ocean temperatures. What's left is a haunting
expanse of gray, a scene repeated in reefs across the globe in what has
fast become a full-blown ecological catastrophe.
The world has lost roughly half its coral reefs in
the last 30 years. Scientists are now scrambling to ensure that at least
a fraction of these unique ecosystems survives beyond the next three
decades. The health of the planet depends on it: Coral reefs support a
quarter of all marine species, as well as half a billion people around
the world.
"This isn't something that's going to happen 100
years from now. We're losing them right now," said marine biologist
Julia Baum of Canada's University of Victoria. "We're losing them really
quickly, much more quickly than I think any of us ever could have
imagined."
Even if the world could halt global warming now,
scientists still expect that more than 90 percent of corals will die by
2050. Without drastic intervention, we risk losing them all. "To lose
coral reefs is to fundamentally undermine the health of a very large
proportion of the human race," said Ruth Gates, director of the Hawaii
Institute of Marine Biology.
Coral
reefs produce some of the oxygen we breathe. Often described as
underwater rainforests, they populate a tiny fraction of the ocean but
provide habitats for one in four marine species. Reefs also form crucial
barriers protecting coastlines from the full force of storms.
They provide billions of dollars in revenue from
tourism, fishing and other commerce, and are used in medical research
for cures to diseases including cancer, arthritis and bacterial or viral
infections. More
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