No subject

[John McManus]

TO        :    Coral - List 
FROM      :    John W. McManus/ReefBase Project Leader 
               CCRRSP, ICLARM, Makati, Metro Manila 
DATE      :    September 5, 1995 

GREETINGS FROM REEFBASE! 

Coral-List, with its highly specialized audience, would be a good means of  
gathering up to date accounts from the people intimately aware of the things  
happening to the coral reefs.  We greatly appreciate the efforts of James  
Hendee and his colleagues for initiating and maintaining coral-list. 

This message comes to you from ReefBase, the global coral reef database  
being developed at ICLARM in the Philippines.  We are currently expanding  
our tables on reef stresses and would like to enlist your help.  Would you  
have anything on major pollution occurrence (e.g. oil spills), destructive  
fishing practices, storms/cyclones; sedimentation, ship grounding, disease  
outbreaks, predator attacks and bleaching incidents on the reefs which you  
are familiar with? 

We d like to know about them from you.  When describing an event, please  
note the major anthropogenic stress, the common name of the reef and its  
coordinates, if possible.   If there are any published or unpublished  
references relating to these, we would welcome copies Send any communication  
to: 

John McManus, Ph.D. 
ICLARM MCPO Box 2631 
0718 Makati City 
PHILIPPINES 
Fax: (632) 8163183 
E-mail: J.MCMANUS at CGNET.com 

We at ReefBase are coming up with a user-friendly international database on  
coral reefs and reef resources.   As a collaborative effort between the  
International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management (ICLARM),  the  
World Wildlife Conservation and Monitoring Centre (WCMC) with the support of  
the European Commission, ReefBase was initiated in 1993 as an effort to  
obtain updated global and regional summaries and assessments of the state of  
the reefs. 

Our  information comes mainly from scientific papers, technical and popular  
articles as well as published and/or unpublished reports. Lately, we have  
been receiving a few reports of bleaching incidents and Acanthaster  
outbreaks through the e-mail. We would appreciate receiving more of these  
from you. 

We d also appreciate if you would send us a copy of your scientific papers,  
popular articles or technical reports related to the following topics: 

? various aspects of coral reef ecology; 
? the most common uses of reefs; 
? harvest practices for near shore resources; 
? natural and human induced stresses on reefs 
? marine protected areas; and 
? government and traditional management policies on reefs and reef systems; 

A preliminary version of ReefBase on a CD-ROM will be released at the 8th  
International Coral Reef Symposium in Panama in 1996.  Any contribution you  
send us will be properly cited. 

Thank you in advance for your support.  Please do not hesitate to contact us  
if we can be of assistance to you or if you have any further questions about  
ReefBase.