[Coral-List] Responding to Coral Bleaching

[artus at iol.it]

I was informed that my message was not delivered to many listers due to the
fact that it was sent form a Yahoo account thus I’ll send it again from a
different email account. Apologies to those that might receive it for a
second time.

Kind regards

Francesca

 

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "frahome at yahoo.com" <frahome at yahoo.com>
To: "coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov" <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> 
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2015 4:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Responding to Coral Bleaching

 

I am glad to read that at least a couple of people on this list questioned
the approach to COTS management as well as the tendency to not look at real
solutions that might require changes to our attitudes, lifestyle, production
systems, society, but rather looking at palliatives that make us feeling
better, even give hope! Hope for what !?! Trophy hunting opportunities at
its worst and coral gardening at the very best?

Personally, I am fed up by human dull gardening on land, I wouldn’t be able
to cope also with human gardening in the sea. Sorry for the rant, I am
definitely not speaking against coral restoration efforts, I just do not see
it as the ultimate goal.

 

COTS killing initiative might ignite hope to some people, while it might
have just the opposite effect on others.

 

I am disheartened not only by the lack of empathy and tact of most people on
this list while talking of culling naturally occurring species on the reef
(I find the tone of certain emails almost offensive towards the fate of
living creatures) but also by the thought that the hope we have is to start
gardening bleaching resistant corals as the only option for the future.

 

The more I reflect on all this, the more I ascribe the reef problems right
to this lack of modesty, sensitivity and will to give up comfort, emerging
even from emails circulating on such selective and educated list. If this is
the way we look at nature and our relationship to it, no wonder why we are
in this situation.

 

Anyone starting embracing those essential qualities is quickly dismissed as
unreliable biased scientist or worst, naïve emotional treehugger.

 

There are plenty of other things we could do NOW besides culling COTS, but
killing starfishes  is more fun and engaging (inflating our anthropocentric
ego) than getting our acts together on nutrients, pollution, overfishing,
climate change, consumerism and so on


 

Making robots to kill COTS? Was the impact on the environment to build and
use those robots evaluated? Could those money and natural resources have
been spent much better working on a solution and not on a sensational
palliative? In which kind of world do we want to live? In a world where
there are robots and drones going around shooting at living creatures while
we keep indulging in our excesses?

 

I have troubles in understanding what you are thinking.

 

Regards

Francesca