CORAL REEF CONSERVATION AND PROTECTION: INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION.

It is now generally acknowledged that coral reefs are among the most threatened global ecosystems and among the most vital (West & Salm, 2003). Reefs are of critical importance to human survival ( especially in developing countries) because they provide subsistence food for a substantial portion of the population, serve as the principle coastal protection structures for most tropical islands, and contribute major income and foreign exchange earnings from tourism.  The impressive worldwide economic value alongside untold medical benefits inherent worth of the worlds coral reefs create strong arguments for conserving these threatened living structures.

Historically management practices have focused on the coral reef as a single unit and not considered associated communities, such as seagrasses, mangroves, mudflats or defined watersheds (which transport complex mixtures in their waters). This method managed the reef in isolation, like an island.

However recently there have been increasing efforts to establish better management and conservation measure to protect the diversity of these biologically rich areas. Current management efforts recognise the importance of including reefs as part of a larger system. Where integrated coastal zone management tools and watershed concepts can be used in the development of comprehensive management and conservation plans.

There are three existing and emerging approaches to international reef conservation, all use a basic method of marine protected areas but vary in the area in which they cover, worldwide, regional and individual.  

1. Special protection status for coral reefs e.g. Convention on Biological Diversity.
2. Regional reef protection agreements and regional coordination e.g. Coral Triangle Regional Agreement.
3. Protection of individual reef species.

Conservation: Convention On Biological Diversity.  

Approximately 6% of the worlds land is in parks but at sea less than one half of a one percent is in any kind of protected area.  The convention on biological diversity (CBD) has worked to implement Marine Protected Areas (MPA’s) as a means by which to protect coral reefs.  MAP’s are broadly split into three distinct groups. Areas managed for sustainable use, which may allow extractive uses, areas where extractive uses are excluded and other significant human pressures are minimised (known as no-take zones) and finally sustainable management over the wider marine and coastal environment.

The CBD Parties acknowledge that individual MPAs are not enough to adequately protect biodiversity within those MPAs, and this is why they see an MPA network approach as “essential.” The CBD Parties have also taken up the issue of how coral bleaching relates to the establishment of MPAs, creating a “Work Plan on Coral Bleaching” that includes some “high priority actions.” These actions include identifying “coral reef areas that exhibit resistance and/or resilience to raised sea temperatures” and “integrating bleaching resilience principles into MPA network design” and “reducing other localized stresses (water quality, overfishing, etc.).”

Conservation: Coral Triangle Regional Agreement.

The “Coral Triangle” is a 2.3 million square mile area in the Indo-Pacific Ocean that boasts the highest biodiversity of any reef system on the planet. Between 500 to 600 reef-building coral species live here, compared to 350 such species in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and just 70 such species in Belize’s Barrier Reef. Unfortunately, the reefs of the Coral Triangle face all the threats discussedin previous blogs, including coral bleachings that hit these reefs hard, particularly in 1997 and 1998. Also, destructive fishing practices, such as the use of dynamite, are “quite prevalent” in the area, damaging corals all the more. And perhaps worst of all for the area’s reefs is the concentrated human population—approximately 150 million people live in the Triangle area, producing large amounts of pollution that further limit the ability of corals to persist.

Yet it is not all bad news for the reefs of the Coral Triangle. In December 2007, top officials from the six Coral Triangle nations (Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste) agreed to create an action plan to manage the Triangle sustainably. These countries finalized this plan in October 2008, and formally adopted it in May 2009, at the World Ocean Conference in Indonesia. Numerous entities, including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, have offered to help these six nations pay for their planning efforts. The United States also pledged nearly $40 million to the project.

Conservation: Protection of Individual Reef Species.

Unlike the previous two approaches to coral reef protection this third and final approach focuses on individual species within coral reef ecosystems.  Essentially this approach uses the convention on international trade of endangered species to prevent the trade of wild and endangered coral species. However it is difficult to firstly get corals listed on the CITES appendices and once it is it is difficult to enforce with counterfeit documentations .

Join me over the next twenty for hours where I'll discuss the non international approaches for coral conservation, examples of marine protected areas, no take zones and draw my final conclusion on whether coral reefs really are suffering a crisis.