A survey of the world’s reefs and sea mounts has revealed that deep-sea trawling is causing widespread destruction of marine habitats. Deep-sea trawlers drag giant nets over the seafloor, destroying habitat over huge areas. Cold water coral reefs in temperate regions are among the most threatened sites; these areas contain pristine habitats with many species which are new to science. Deep-sea reefs are particularly vulnerable to trawling, unlike shallow water reefs which are stronger because they need to withstand wave action.

Bans on deep-sea trawling exist in a number of sites around the world, including the biggest cold-water reef in the world, which is in Norway. However Jason Hall-Spencer, a researcher from Plymouth University involved with the survey, emphasises that more needs to be done. He calls for the establishment of an international network of marine reserves which ban deep-sea trawling.

Source: Guardian, 19th February 2010

A report on the Guardian website (Sunday, 16 August), suggests that electrified steel cages have had a dramatic effect on coral-reef building off the island of Vabbinfaru, Maldives. However, the researchers involved recognise that this is a local, small-scale solution to declining coral reefs and does little to address the well-documented widespread degradation of reefs.

Researchers have sunk a two-tonne steel cage on to the sea floor in Vabbinfaru. The cage is attached to a cable which supplies an electric current through the structure. The current triggers a chemical reaction which draws calcium carbonate out of the water and leads to deposition on the steel frame. Coral are attracted to the calcium-carbonate coated cage: coral growth on the structure is up to five times faster than on concrete structures implanted into the sea-floor. The coral surrounding the cage and concrete areas is largely dead, due to a mass-bleaching event in 1998.

The cage is not being used for widespread coral reef construction, instead providing a localised area of coral for observation by tourists on Vabbinfaru. It is possible however that this technique could be used to repair degrading reefs, abeit on a small scale.

See original article: Sunken steel cages could save coral reefs, Guardian online, 16 August 2009

The Policy Team last night attended a lecture at the Royal Society delivered by J.E.N. ‘Charlie’ Veron, a world-leading expert on corals. Charlie has spent much of his career studying corals at the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Queensland in Australia, but has more recently devoted his life to spreading the word about the terrible threats to coral reefs posed by climate change.

Over the course of the hour’s lecture, introduced by Sir David Attenborough, and subsequent questions, the threats to corals became clear, and frighteningly so. Corals exist at the interface between the land, sea and atmosphere: a unique and vulnerable position. Corals depend on an optimum temperature to survive: in the Great Barrier Reef system this is approximately 31 degrees celcius. An increase in temperature causes the symbiotic organisms which live inside the coral, the zooxanthellae, to over-produce oxygen, killing the coral: this is observed as a ‘bleaching’ event. Charlie said that he hadn’t observed coral bleaching before 1980 but since then it has become all too common and has now been observed in every major coral system across the globe.

Charlie presented a synopsis of the likely effect on coral as the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and hence in the oceans which absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide, increases with time. As the concentration of carbon dioxide in the oceans increases, chemical reactions result in the increasing prodction of hydrogen ions. These hydrogens bind with carbonate ions, which are used by corals to build calcium carbonate skeletons. Disruption of this chemical reaction means that corals are no longer able to build their skeletons and so disrupts reef building.

At 350ppm, mass coral bleaching events were observed all over the world. At today’s concentration of 387ppm, there is compounding long-term degradation of the Great Barrier Reef. 450ppm, the target for the Copenhagen negotiations in December, will cause mass-bleaching most years, and at 500ppm and above shallow water corals will disappear. If the carbon concentration was to rise as high at 800ppm, those corals remaining would be askeletal and would not be associated with reefs.

The degradation of coral reefs is a huge environmental and socioeconomical issue. Not only do reefs support hotspots of biodiversity, providing habitat for up to nine million species, but they provide natural wave-breaks, protecting coastline, and support fishing and tourism industries. The livlihoods of many coastal communities depend on the ecosystem services provided by coral reefs.

Speaking at the end of the meeting, Sir David Attenborough offered a direct challenge to the scientific community. He said we all have a duty to support politicians, providing information, to make sure that their voices are as loud and as authoritative as possible at the Copenhagen negotiations. Reducing carbon emissions is paramount, and widespread geo-engineering must form part of this.

Following the lecture, members of the scientific community signed a statement setting out the results of a workshop, held earlier in the day, in which scientific consensus was reached regarding the likely impact of ocean acidification on coral reefs and the ’safe limits’ within which carbon emissions should be held to prevent widespread degradation of reefs before 2100.

Coral reefs are directly impacted by the synergistic effects of global warming and ocean acidification and are likely to be placed into a situation of irreversible decline if immediate steps are not taken to reduce CO2 emissions. In December 2009, Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be meeting in Copenhagen to discuss and hopefully agree to greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. The scientific community has a critical role to play in informing the decision makers involved in the UNFCCC talks about the level of greenhouse gas emissions cuts required to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change and ocean acidification.

Professor J.E.N Veron is the former Chief Scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and widely regarded as the world’s leading authority on coral reef ecosystems. He has extensively researched the highly synergistic threats posed to coral reef ecosystems by global warming and ocean acidification. Professor Veron will summarise these threats and the action he believes is essential at Copenhagen this December.

This presentation will be followed by a summary of the findings and recommendations of a Technical Expert Workshop held earlier in the day.

Time and date: 15.30 – 17.00 (doors open at 15.10), Monday 6th July

Location: The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AG (HUlink to mapUH) HUhttp://royalsociety.org/UH The nearest tube station is Piccadilly Circus (5 minutes), Charing Cross (10 minutes) and Victoria (20 minutes).

This event is being organised by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean, the Royal Society, and the Zoological Society of London.

Please note seats are not reserved unless prior arrangements have been made with aylin.mcnamara@zsl.org. Doors open 20 minutes before the presentation starts.

The Natural Environment Research Council and Defra will jointly fund an £11m study to examine the effect of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems, it has been announced. The focus of the study will be the Atlantic, Antarctic and Arctic oceans. The likely impacts of ocean acidification; resulting in loss of coral reefs due to the breakdown of the shells of calciferous organisms such as coral polyps, on humans and the economy will also be studied.

Ocean acidification has increased by 30% since the industrial revolution, resulting in a pH decrease of 0.1 units since pre-industrial times. The Independent Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that pH will fall further, by between 0.14 – 0.35 units, over the course of the 21st Century.

See full story at BBC News Website

A worldwide campaign to raise awareness about the value and importance of coral reefs was launched on Wednesday, 24 January. The International Year of the Reef (IYOR) 2008, launched by the International Coral Reef Initiative, aims to build upon the awareness generated by the 1997 IYOR. 11 years on from this original event, it is clear that more needs to be done to safeguard the future of coral reefs around the globe.

The launch of IYOR 2008 coincided with the release of a report by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) showing that at least 50% of the world’s coral reefs are dangerously threatened by warming oceans and increasingly rough seas. 2005 was the warmest year on record, leading to widespread bleaching and death of corals across the Caribbean, a situation exacerbated by increasingly strong storms, including Hurricane Katrina, which battered the coasts throughout the hurricane season.