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

[Alina Szmant]

Hello Mark:

In 1993 I helped Bob Ginsburg with the Global Aspects of corals Reefs: Health, Hazards and History colloquium he organized at the University of Miami.  Researchers came from all over and presented their case studies.  On the 3rd day of the Colloquium there was a session about measures and policies that could be used to help save coral reefs and ecotourism was applauded by many as the solution for a number of reasons.  I clearly recall feeling alarmed at the prospect of millions of people flocking to thousands of hotels built along 100s of km of coral reef coastline and spoke out against the concept. Boy was I shot down. The economics of developing coral reef ecotourism to help all of the poor people living near coral reefs won the day!!! This was going to help prevent overfishing the nearby reefs because the locals would have have new ways of making a living rather than depending on coral reefs for food, barter goods and building materials.

 How did that work out for coral reefs?????



Dr. Alina M. Szmant,  CEO
CISME Instruments LLC



-------- Original message --------
From: Mark Tupper via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Date: 5/27/23 5:05 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: Phillip Dustan <phil.dustan at gmail.com>
Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Help Us Understand the Beauty of Coral Reefs

Phil, you hit it on the head. People are more likely to exploit what they
love than protect it. Beautiful reefs, beaches, etc draw people like a
magnet, leading to hotels, restaurants, dive shops, glass-bottom boat
tours, increased fishing pressure to support said hotels and restaurants,
sewage, plastic and other debris, and habitat destruction from coastal
development.

I watched this happen over a decade in Coron, Philippines. When I started
surveys there in 2007, there were 3 hotels, a handful of tour operators,
and maybe 30 cars on the island. By 2017, there were 53 hotels, several
dozen tour operators, and about 3500 cars. The nearby reefs in Coron Bay
that were stunning in 2007 were mostly trashed by 2017. I had to travel at
least an hour to find healthy reefs with decent fish biomass.

This same pattern is repeated globally. Coron is just one of many sites
that has been "loved to death". Not to sound too flippant, but perhaps we
should portray reefs as dangerous, nasty, scary places so people leave them
alone.

Mark

On Sat, 27 May 2023, 12:02 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
>
_______________________________________________
Coral-List mailing list
Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list