[Coral-List] global threats drive coral declines of world reefs, not local impacts

Wed Feb 14 16:42:16 UTC 2024

Dear Colleagues,

The discussion about this paper from 2016 was held a long time ago. There
are many assumptions such as, the protected areas are effectively managed
and that isolated reefs have not any human impact. Nevertheless, with
transdisciplinary research is possible to identify hide causes of coral
reef degradat*n *considering all the human activities held even in
protected areas, paper parks and isolated coral reefs such explosions to
enlarged channels, direct reef destruction to enlarge ports, town sewage
leaks going directly to coral reefs, mass tourism, increase in maritime
navigation,cruise ship latrine washing, international industrial
overfishing, ship groundings, oil and other pollutants spill and military
exercises among many others causes that added to climate change (United
Nations acknowledge them as Cumulative Effects) causing morbidity and
mortality of coral reef organisms; accordingly to the intensity, frequency,
duration and geographical scale of the local impacts many of which were
allowed by decision makers and justified with local restoration projects
and confidential contracts.

We are writing a contribution to this knowledge in the following months.
Therefore, when doing analysis of local causes of degradation, it is
advisable to consider the history of local impacts as well as the impacts
caused by climate change (global: the sum of local gas emissions
pollution). The conclusions should be more adjusted to real scenarios of
local case studies in situ, to improve the world coral reef management
effectiveness and Global Behavior Change.

Cordially
*Nohora Galvis*
*Director*
*International Coral Reef Observatory, ICRO*
*UN DOALOS Expert*
*ICRS World Reef Award*
*Facebook ICRObservatory*
*Twitter ArrecifesCoral and ICR_Observatory*
*Instagram ** ICR_Observatory*
*Youtube ** ICR_Observatory*

El dom, 11 feb 2024 a las 17:45, Risk, Michael via Coral-List (<
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>) escribió:

>    Doug, you should read that paper carefully. Absorb the statistical
>    manipulations and the assumptions.
>
>    Compare that paper with the-literally-100's that have shown the
>    contrary.
>      __________________________________________________________________
>
>    From: Coral-List <coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> on behalf of
>    Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
>    Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2024 12:52 AM
>    To: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
>    Subject: [Coral-List] global threats drive coral declines of world
>    reefs, not local impacts
>
>    Caution: External email.
>           I just discovered this article.  They found that coral cover
>    does
>    not correlate with local human populations, a proxy for local human
>    impacts.  That implies that world coral declines are primarily driven
>    by
>    global threats, not local threats.  There are obvious local impacts on
>    corals that we do need to address, of course, the evidence of that is
>    abundant.  But for the world's corals as a whole, not only is global
>    warming crucial to reduce, but it is nearly the whole ball game.  The
>    results for macroalgae are similar, there is a statistically
>    significant
>    effect on both by population due to the large sample size, but for
>    both, it
>    is tiny and so ecologically unimportant.
>    They point out that it is very different with reef fish, local
>    human effects are the dominant impacts on reef fish populations, with
>    loads
>    of evidence it correlates with distance from humans, distance to large
>    markets, closed vs open fishing areas, etc.  And of course, loss of
>    coral
>    and rugosity also reduces fish.  So the results of this study are
>    specific
>    to corals and macroalgae and largely don't extend to fish.
>     Bruno, J.F. and Valdivia, A. 2016. Coral reef degradation is not
>    correlated with local human population density. Scientific Reports 6:
>    29778, 7pp.
>    [1]https://www.nature.com/articles/srep29778      open-access
>    Cheers, Doug
>    --
>    Douglas Fenner
>    Lynker Technologies, LLC, Contractor
>    NOAA Fisheries Service
>    Pacific Islands Regional Office
>    Honolulu
>    and:
>    Coral Reef Consulting
>    PO Box 997390
>    Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799-6298  USA
>    Costanza, R. 2023. To build a better world, stop chasing economic
>    growth.
>    Nature 624: 519-521.
>    [2]https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-04029-8
>    Fossil fuel air pollution kills 5 million people world-wide per year
>    [3]https://www.yahoo.com/news/research-shows-disturbing-between-million
>    s-200000257.html
>    World's richest 1% emit as much as 5 billion people
>    [4]https://makerichpolluterspay.org/climate-equality-report/
>    Huge expansion of fossil fuels planned, will be very destructive
>    [5]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/08/insanity-petrost
>    ates-planning-huge-expansion-of-fossil-fuels-says-un-report
>    "without policy changes, the world will heat up enough by the end of
>    the
>    century that more than 2 billion people will live in life-threatening
>    hot
>    climates"         Will you be in that area???
>    [6]https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-sounding-alarm-dangerous-probl
>    em-123000792.html
>    World subsidies for fossil fuels reached an all-time high of over $1
>    TRILLION in 2022, the last year for which data is available.  The
>    subsidies
>    MUST end.
>    [7]https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/fossil-fuel-subsid
>    ies-must-end/
>    _______________________________________________
>    Coral-List mailing list
>    Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>    [8]https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>
> References
>
>    1. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep29778
>    2. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-04029-8
>    3.
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/research-shows-disturbing-between-millions-200000257.html
>    4. https://makerichpolluterspay.org/climate-equality-report/
>    5.
> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/08/insanity-petrostates-planning-huge-expansion-of-fossil-fuels-says-un-report
>    6.
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-sounding-alarm-dangerous-problem-123000792.html
>    7.
> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/fossil-fuel-subsidies-must-end/
>    8. https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
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