More than 2,600 of the world’s top marine scientists yesterday warned coral reefs around the world were in rapid decline and urged immediate global action on climate change to save what remains.
The consensus statement at the International Coral Reef Symposium, being held in the northeastern Australian city of Cairns, stressed that the livelihoods of millions of people were at risk.
Coral reefs provide food and work for countless coastal inhabitants globally, generate significant revenues through tourism and function as a natural breakwater for waves and storms, they said.
Photo: AFP
The statement, endorsed by the forum attendees and other marine scientists, called for measures to head off escalating damage caused by rising sea temperatures, ocean acidification, overfishing and -pollution from the land.
“There is a window of opportunity for the world to act on climate change, but it is closing rapidly,” said Terry Hughes, convener of the symposium, held every four years, which attracted about 2,000 scientists from 80 countries.
Jeremy Jackson, senior scientist at the Smithsonian Institution in the US, said reefs around the world have seen severe declines in coral cover over the past several decades.
In the Caribbean, for example, between 75 and 85 percent of the coral cover has been lost in the past 35 years.
Even the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the best-protected reef ecosystem on the planet, has witnessed a 50 percent decline in the last 50 years.
Jackson said that while climate change was exacerbating the problem, it was also causing increased droughts, agricultural failure and sea level rises at increasingly faster rates, which implied huge problems for society.
“That means what’s good for reefs is also critically important for people and we should wake up to that fact,” he said. “The future of coral reefs isn’t a marine version of tree-hugging, but a central problem for humanity.”
Stephen Palumbi, director of Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station, said addressing local threats, such as poor land -development and unsustainable fishing practices, was also critical.
More than 85 percent of reefs in Asia’s “Coral Triangle” are directly threatened by human activities such as coastal development, pollution and overfishing, according to a report launched at the forum earlier yesterday.
The Coral Triangle covers Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, the Solomon Islands and East Timor and contains nearly 30 percent of the world’s reefs and more than 3,000 species of fish.
International Society for Reef Studies president Robert Richmond said that the consensus statement was not just another effort at documenting the mounting problems.
Instead, he said it was also about making the best available science available to leaders worldwide.
“The scientific community has an enormous amount of research showing we have a problem, but right now, we are like doctors diagnosing a patient’s disease, but not prescribing any effective cures,” he said. “We have to start more actively engaging the process and supporting public officials with real-world prescriptions for success.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including