[Coral-List] 60 Minutes / Sustainable Tourism!?
andrew ross
andyroo_of72 at yahoo.com
Mon Dec 26 12:30:51 EST 2011
Steve,
I finally got around to watching this vid- wow.
How important is it that the only A. cervicornis in the video is the bleaching (stock) footage? We can't call this a time capsule while the primary historic mid-depth coral species and its particular habitats & services are missing, can we?
Or was this reef historically not dominated by Staghorn thickets?
Andrew Ross
UWI/Seascape Caribbean
Jamaica
________________________________
From: Steve Mussman <sealab at earthlink.net>
To: "coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov" <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 3:09 PM
Subject: [Coral-List] 60 Minutes / Sustainable Tourism!?
The 60 Minute piece on the state of coral reef ecology served as an
excellent primer which should help to increase public awareness and
hopefully lead to more efforts aimed at gaining traction on this issue.
(http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7392092n&tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea.8
)
At the same time, the segment raised some interesting questions.
I would like to know how coral-list subscribers react to some of the
statistics and assertions cited. (Ex. 90% of sharks are gone and 25%
of reefs have been lost with another 25% likely to disappear in the
next two decades).
And what about the ability of healthy reefs to resist the multiple stresses
associated with development, tourism and rising atmospheric CO2 levels?
This of course leads right to the topic of sustainable tourism. The reef
featured was in a remote area fifty miles south of the main island of Cuba.
Development and tourism is so highly restricted there that it would be
unrealistic to expect that such standards could ever be applied to reefs
located in the more popular tourist-driven dive destinations. While I
believe
that all sustainability efforts are helpful, I question whether or not these
efforts
can ever measure up and offset the greater forces at play.
Certainly "healthy', well-protected reefs such as The Gardens of the Queen
will be better equipped to withstand the onslaught, but if we don't
effectively
deal with climate change and ocean temperatures continue to rise (along with
associated trends in acidification), can there be any real hope that even
these
relatively pristine reefs won't ultimately share the same fate as their less
resistant counterparts?
Regards,
Steve
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