[Coral-List] Toward a New Era of Coral Reef Monitoring

Tue Apr 18 19:29:47 UTC 2023

Dear Coral- Listers,

I always agree with the messages from Phil, because we also have monitored
coral reefs for decades watching the degradation due to local human
activities (business as usual and also includes producing emissions and
local pollution due to human lifestyle that threatens coral reefs). That is
why, we learned from a multidisciplinary background to advise
sustainable development with facts from ecology, social and economics
sciences. Thus the coral reef conservation can become effective.

Coral reefs even in marine protected areas have negative impacts from
megaprojects that increase the number of inhabitants and visitors. "They
need clean water, reduced pollution (including sedimentation), reduced
fishing pressure, less tourists, and a cooler, higher pH ocean". Therefore,
the time is right to include in our monitoring protocols raising awareness
with the facts that monitoring shows us. The awareness should be delivered
not just to the general public but to the same colleagues and the decision
makers.

The monitoring results should direct a link to decision makers to obligate
them to immediately stop the causes produced by megaprojects on / or close
to coral reefs. That is the reason I have written before about becoming a
stronger international coral reef scientific society. We can not continue
supporting unsustainable development with promises to save reefs by
fragmentation of coral colonies while with inaction or confidential
agreements supporting destruction of coral reefs and morbidity / mortality
of stone coral. We should learn from the case studies that have failed to
stop sewage pollution, and other causes.

The blue economy and business will continue to thrive without healthy coral
reefs. For instance, cruises are planned to continue visiting the Florida
Keys even if coral reefs get destroyed. Cruise Tourists do not dive.
However, tourists want to eat fresh coral reef fishes (e.g. snappers) but
they can be fed with salmon from other subtropical areas or overfishing
other coral reefs from the Caribbean Sea where they visit. In 2022, Port of
Miami had 4.022.544 passengers.

If sewage in the coral reef areas is one of the main problems why in 2023,
none scientists or institutions have figured out a way to solve it or at
least to include them in their statistics models. *Sewage can be
alternative energy for example.* That will certainly be a great
technological development for our human kind to stop degrading the ocean
and  rivers. What about finding alternatives to avoid sewage going to the
sea and rivers.

To know more about our long lasting research projects follow us on:
 Facebook.com/ICRObservatory/
 Twitter @ArrecifesCoral (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian)
 Twitter @ICR_Observatory (English, French and Spanish)

 Youtube @ICR_Observatory Instagram ICR_Observatory

"The thematic strategy on the environment should be a brave and progressive
 initiative, not just a lukewarm recommendation of wishful thinking."

Sincerely,
Nohora Galvis
International Coral Reef Observatory, ICRO

El mar, 18 abr 2023 a las 10:01, Phillip Dustan via Coral-List (<
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>) escribió:

> Hi Amy,
>  Your team is organizing an amazing array of instrumentation to dial in
> coral reef condition. The real question is what is going to be done about a
> degrading reef when it is revealed.
> In general, when people hear that a reef is being monitored they think some
> remedial action will be triggered to "fix the problem".
> As valuable as reefs are to humankind you'd think this might be the case
> but in fact, history shows it has not been.
> Take the Florida Keys for example. This reef system has been under attack
> by humans for at least 100 years.
> John Pennekamp's work got a small section of Key Largo "protected" which
> resulted in hoards of divers dissenting upon the reefs.
> In the 1970's thousands of anchors were ravaging the reefs and it took the
> work of individuals to create serviceable moorings buoys.
> The creation of a Marine Sanctuary increased business.
> But we all knew it was the increasing sewage that was causing the major
> problems but
> Then the major herbivores dropped out and the weeds, fertilized by sewage,
> began to over grow the reef.
> Individual people started monitoring in the 70's and a Keyswide monitoring
> system was put in place in the mid 1990's
> The investigators measured a 38 percent loss of coral cover and 400%
> increase in stations with disease in 4 calendar years.
> Coral cover on reefs where monitoring had begun in the 1970's was showing a
> 90%+ loss in coral cover.
> Business continued to BOOM and the reefs continued to die.
> Now the loss is blamed on climate change whereas, truth be told, most of
> the death happened before climate change began to be a factor.
> The sewer system that was installed is a failure because fresh wastewater
> is buoyant.
> New diseases are so virulent the corals must be placed in rescue aquaria
> away from the reef.
> Everyone is focusing on restoration but corals will never thrive in
> polluted water.
> A few years ago I was visiting DIscovery Bay where I had worked years
> before.
> ( see https://biospherefoundation.org/project/coral-reef-change/)
> I told Leslie I was interested in how the reef had changed and he said,
> "Phil, you don't have to dive to see the reef is dying, just look out and
> see it's dark brown when it used to be golden".
> So while we can build better gizzies to follow the dying reefs in ever
> greater detail, unless we generate the political will to act it is all in
> vain.
> Maybe we should spend our energies and ever decreasing budgets on altering
> human behaviors instead of building newer, faster, better resolving
> platforms to watch the war in ever greater detail.
> Most nations do not have the resources of a Wood's Hole or Scripps
> Institute of Oceanography, or the need for nextgen monitoring platforms.
> They need help with food, healthcare, sewage treatment, and education.
> My friends and colleagues know I love technology and was one of the first
> to monitor coral reefs using lines,video, and even satellites, but this is
> not going to help the reefs anymore.
> They are way past needing monitoring.
> They need simple help: clean water, reduced pollution, reduced fishing
> pressure, less tourists, and a cooler, higher pH ocean.
> So congrats on developing a nexgen monitoring system but you may be wasting
> your energy on something that is necessarily over complex and will not
> accomplish what is needed.
> Simply put, the very adaptations that have enabled coral reefs to thrive in
> the clear, nutrient poor tropical seas makes them vulnerable to human
> activities.
> They are complex processes operating at levels of ecological efficiency
> humans should strive to emulate- That would be true  sustainability!
> But, sadly, coral reefs will probably not thrive again until humans are
> gone.
> Phil
>
>
>
>
>
> Leslie, the retire gardener and I were sitting in the
> breezeway reliving old times
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 15, 2023 at 9:19 AM Amy Apprill via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
> > Hello Coral List,
> >
> > Our team is pleased to share a new open-access perspective paper titled
> > ‘Towards a New Era of Coral Reef Monitoring’ published in Environmental
> > Science & Technology (2023, 57, 5117-5124).
> >
> > Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.est.2c05369
> >
> > Abstract: Coral reefs host some of the highest concentrations of
> > biodiversity and economic value in the oceans, yet these ecosystems are
> > under threat due to climate change and other human impacts. Reef
> monitoring
> > is routinely used to help
> > prioritize reefs for conservation and evaluate the success of
> intervention
> > efforts. Reef status and health are most frequently characterized using
> > diver-based surveys, but the inherent limitations of these methods mean
> > there is a growing need for
> > advanced, standardized, and automated reef techniques that capture the
> > complex nature of the ecosystem. Here we draw on experiences from our own
> > interdisciplinary research programs to describe advances in in situ
> > diver-based and autonomous reef monitoring. We present our vision for
> > integrating interdisciplinary measurements for select “case-study” reefs
> > worldwide and for
> > learning patterns within the biological, physical, and chemical reef
> > components and their interactions. Ultimately, these efforts could
> support
> > the development of a scalable and standardized suite of sensors that
> > capture and relay key data to assist in categorizing reef health. This
> > framework has the potential to provide stakeholders with the information
> > necessary to assess reef health during an unprecedented time of reef
> change
> > as well as restoration and intervention activities.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> > Amy Apprill, Yogesh Girdhar, T. Aran Mooney, Colleen M. Hansel, Matthew
> H.
> > Long, Yaqin Liu, W. Gordon Zhang, Jason Kapit, Konrad Hughen, Jeff
> Coogan,
> > and Austin Green
> > Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >
>
>
> --
>
>
>
> Phillip Dustan PhD
> Charleston SC  29424
> 843-953-8086 office
> 843-224-3321 (mobile)
>
> "When we try to pick out anything by itself
> we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords
> that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe. "
> *                                         John Muir 1869*
>
> *A Swim Through TIme on Carysfort Reef* __
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