[Coral-List] Help Us Understand the Beauty of Coral Reefs

Sat May 27 12:22:08 UTC 2023

Dear all,

Yes, Phil, and let me remind:

*Why do so many people care so little in the face of planetary changes that
will reshape the lives of our grandchildren?  In 1968, Baba Dioum, a
Senegalese forest ranger, *

*provided a пemorable answer. "In the end", he said, "we will conserve only
what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand
only what we are taught."*
                                              -  Knoll, A. H. 2021. A Brief
History of Earth

Teaching and education are coming from family, school and society
(including taxes).

Cheers,

Vassil

On Sat, May 27, 2023 at 7:01 AM Phillip Dustan via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

>  I Agree. I was a co-author on this paper. My photo time-series of
> Carysfort Reef were used to help validate the algorithm.
> https://biospherefoundation.org/project/coral-reef-change/
>
> However, there is a greater logical flaw in your thinking. For years the
> mantra has been "People only protect what they love"
> Cousteau popularized the idea and he always believed that it worked but I
> think it is fair to say that the current state of affairs is that either
> people do not love reefs or the idea is false.
> Everyone treats coral reefs as a resource that provides goods and services
> to humans when in fact reefs need all their productivity to maintain
> themselves.
> Reefs are living processes and that is what makes them beautiful to humans,
> a healthy reef glows with life.
> This can be quantified with image processing but that does not seem to add
> to their conservation unfortunately.
> Guess they need more than the perception of love to be allowed to exist in
> the Anthropocene..........
> Phil
>
>
> On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 7:59 AM Andreas Haas via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
> > I kinda wrote such a paper a while ago dealing exactel with this topic
> (Can
> > we measure beauty? Computational evaluation of coral reef aesthetics
> > <https://peerj.com/articles/1390/> , https://peerj.com/articles/1390/).
> ..
> > We had a really hard time finding an outlet or reviewers because no one
> > could really understand the idea behind it, but maybe this group might
> > appreciate it.
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Andy
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, May 24, 2023 at 3:20 PM MOUQUET Nicolas via Coral-List <
> > coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Peter, thanks for your answer. Evaluating the human perception of
> > > sescape is of strong interest in our willing to measure the non
> material
> > > contribution of nature to people. Aesthetic is among the most direct
> > > perception we have but one of the most difficult to measure. It
> requires
> > > using questionnaires such as the one I sent you but is always limited
> as
> > it
> > > take time to evaluate few images. By using this online survey and then
> > > building a deep learning model to predict human aesthetic perception,
> we
> > > will be able to compute aesthetic for thousands of images collected in
> > the
> > > field (look at what we did for coral fishes here as an exemple of our
> > > research :
> > > http://nicolasmouquet.free.fr/pdf/Langlois_et_al_2022_Plos_Biology.htm
> )
> > >
> > > And you are right it will then be a matter of combining this measure of
> > > human perception with ecological attributes of the coral communities to
> > > understand the level of decoupling between aesthetic perception and
> > > ecological functioning (we did it with coralligenous communities
> already
> > > here :
> > > http://nicolasmouquet.free.fr/pdf/Langlois_et_al_2021_Ecol_Indic.htm
> ).
> > >
> > > Altogether, this will allow us to increase the public awareness of the
> > > decoupling between what people find beautiful and ecologically
> > functioning
> > > and help (hopefully) triggering a positive loop between understanding
> and
> > > perception. This might seems evident to you and unfortunately not to
> most
> > > of the public.
> > >
> > > Your help filling and sharing this survey will be very valuable :
> > > https://www.biodiful.org/#/beautifulcorals
> > >
> > > Thank you,
> > >
> > > Nicolas Mouquet, CNRS, MARBEC, University of Montpellier.
> > > https://twitter.com/NicolasMouquet
> > > http://nicolasmouquet.free.fr/
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Le 20 mai 2023 à 23:16, Peter Sale <sale at uwindsor.ca> a écrit :
> > >
> > > Nicolas and listers,
> > > I suspect I am missing something that will be obvious to most of you.
> But
> > > in what way will the development of predictive computer models able to
> > > estimate the aesthetic value of coral reefs serve to preserve or
> restore
> > > coral reefs?  Sometimes I think we get ourselves so deep down into the
> > > weeds, or in this case, the algorithms, that we forget what we are
> trying
> > > to accomplish. Also. I hope your survey will gather information on
> > > knowledge about coral reefs, because people who do not understand reefs
> > > often find them disappointingly brown and slimy when in fact they are
> > > vibrant living ecosystems of unrivaled complexity that can cause some
> of
> > us
> > > to momentarily forget to breathe.
> > >
> > > I’m not opposed to surveys or to predictive models. But I do wonder
> > > sometimes where coral reef research is going.
> > >
> > > Peter Sale
> > > University of Windsor (Emeritus)
> > > www.petersalebooks.com<http://www.petersalebooks.com/>
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Coral-List mailing list
> > > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > > https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Dr. Andreas F. Haas
> > Department of Marine Microbiology and Biogeochemistry
> > NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
> > Department of Biology
> > San Diego State University, USA
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > 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*
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCPJE7UE6sA
> *Raja Ampat Sustainability Project video*
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RR2SazW_VY&fbclid=IwAR09oZkEk8wQkK6LN3XzVGPgAWSujACyUfe2Ist__nYxRRSkDE_jAYqkJ7A
> *Bali Coral Bleaching 2016 video*
>
> *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOfLTnPSUo
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOfLTnPSUo>*
> TEDx Charleston on saving coral reefs
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwENBNrfKj4
> Google Scholar Citations:
> https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HCwfXZ0AAAAJ
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list