Mon, Nov 23, 2009 page2

• FEATURE : Coral reefs disappearing at an alarming rate

  ALMOST GONE The underwater coastlines of Taiwan used to be lush with animal and plant life that has since all but disappeared because of overfishing and pollution

  • By Vincent Y. chao / STAFF REPORTER
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  Decades ago, the coastal areas surrounding Taiwan were filled with lush underwater vegetation, schools of multicolored fish and a kaleidoscope of healthy and abundant coral reefs.

  Take a trip underwater today and you’ll find that all this has changed.

  The water remains crystal clear, but now all it reveals is a deep, cold ocean virtually devoid of life, said Allen Chen (陳昭倫), an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Biodiversity Research Center.

  The fish from these waters have either been served on seafood platters or have moved on to distant, safer waters, he said. The vegetation has disappeared following the collapse of what was once a healthy and sustainable eco-system.

  Now the last vestiges of a different time are also in danger of disappearing from Taiwan’s coasts.

  Chen said the coral reefs on ­Taiwan’s coastlines were ­disappearing at an alarming rate. A study conducted by the Taiwan Environmental Information Center (TEIC) shows coral reefs have been retreating in 11 of their 16 testing locations. Moderate increases were found in the other five.

  “Overfishing, pollution and wastewater are all really big problems for the coral reefs,” said Lulu Keng (耿璐), the project manager at TEIC.

  Using volunteers and testing methods from the worldwide Reefcheck Foundation, her organization will continue testing the health of reefs throughout the year.

  Coral reefs can be found in most coastal waters around Taiwan and its outlying islands save the eastern coast. They are living eco-systems that form in tropical and subtropical waters. Chen said they were also an essential ingredient for a healthy and sustainable ocean.

  “Coral reefs are essentially communities, they need fish and other marine life in order to be sustained and vice versa,” Chen said.

  The fish provide essential ­nutrients that maintain the structure of the coral reefs, which in return provides marine life with a habitat.

  “Think of coral reefs as an office building. What happens when all the cleaners, security guards and maintenance staff disappear?” Chen asked.

  He said that the Fisheries Agency needed to regulate fishing to allow the coral reefs a chance of survival.

  However, when asked to comment, the Fisheries Agency denied any direct correlation between the fishing industry and disappearing coral reefs and fish stocks.

  “Fishing is already heavily regulated in most coral reef areas,” Fisheries Agency Deputy Director-General Chen Tian-shou (陳添壽) said.

  Instead, he drew attention to the problems of global warming and climate change, which he said had a much bigger impact. He also said that protection of coral reefs fell under the jurisdiction of many agencies, including the Forestry Bureau.

  The comments from the Fisheries Agency reflect the failure to coordinate a common approach to the problem, Allen Chen said. He added that government agencies must work together in producing a comprehensive plan that includes regulation, protection and education — before it is too late.

  Reports released by the UN’s Environment Programme state that threats to 58 percent of the world’s coral reefs were a result of “overfishing, coastal development and other human activity.”

  The agency also said that by late 2000, 27 percent of the world’s coral reefs had disappeared.

  One thing is certain — coral reefs are recovering more slowly after the typhoons and tropical storms that battered Taiwan earlier this year.

  “Typhoon Morakot [in August] showed how fragile these coral reef systems have become,” Keng said.

  She said she found mounds of “broken and overturned reefs” after leading a group of divers to inspect the typhoon’s aftermath.

  In Lanyu (蘭嶼), coral reefs were reduced to 17 percent as a result of the typhoon, from 67 percent coverage in 2004. Other islands, including Liouciou (小琉球) and Penghu (澎湖), suffered similar damage.

  However, there is still cause for optimism, Keng said, citing a case in which divers found out first hand how resilient coral reefs could be if left undisturbed.

  “Divers who visited the Northeast and Yilan Coast National Scenic Area (東北角暨宜蘭海岸國家風景區) last year said there was nothing to see, that the coral reefs were mostly dead,” she said. “However, this year, we found that after being left alone, the coral reefs had mostly regenerated … It was beautiful.”

  Coral reefs are home to dozens of fish species and are an accurate measure of how we are treating our oceans, Allen Chen said.

  “Healthy coral reefs lead to a healthy ocean, which in turn is the key to the health of people,” he said.
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