Caribbean Coral Reefs UN Increasing Threat, Warns UN Agency
 
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:49:30 -0500

CARIBBEAN CORAL REEFS UNDER INCREASING THREAT, WARNS UN AGENCY
 
New York, Jan 28 2008  1:00PM
Warming temperatures and increasing storms are posing serious threats 
to Caribbean coral reefs and the people who depend on them for 
their livelihoods, the United Nations Educational, Scientific 
and Cultural Organization (<" http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=29008&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html">UNESCO) 
said today. 

During the last 50 years many Caribbean reefs lost up to 80 per cent 
of their coral cover, according to the Paris-based agency, which 
noted that 2005 was especially disastrous for Caribbean corals. 


Worldwide, nearly 500 million people depend on healthy coral reefs 
for sustenance, coastal protection, renewable resources, and tourism, 
with an estimated 30 million of the world’s poorest people 
depending entirely on the reefs for food. 

Coral reefs are fragile ecosystems and current estimates suggest 
that nearly two thirds of the world’s coral reefs are under severe 
threat from the effects of economic development and climate change, 
such as coral bleaching, a direct result of global warming. 


The agency’s warning came ahead of next week’s launch of “The Status 
of Caribbean Coral Reefs after Bleaching and Hurricanes in 2005,” 
by Clive Wilkinson, Director of UNESCO’s Global Coral Reef Monitoring 
Network, a report assessing the damage caused to the reefs 
by high temperatures and numerous storms of three years ago in 
the wider Caribbean, home to over 10 per cent of world’s reefs. 


The report notes that the warmest year since temperature records 
began in 1880, 2005 witnessed massive coral losses through severe 
bleaching, up to 95 per cent in several islands including the Cayman 
Islands, Jamaica, Cuba, and the French West Indies. There were 

Tackling the threats will require controlling further warming by 
dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the next 20 years 
and managing the direct pressures such as pollution, fishing and 
damaging coastal developments, the report states. 
The report, co-sponsored by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic 
Commission and written by 80 coral reef scientists and managers, 
kicks off the International Year of the Reef 2008, a worldwide 
campaign to raise awareness about the value of coral reefs and 
the threats they face, and to spur action to protect them.
 2008-01-28 00:00:00.000 


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