Addition to 1997-98 Mass Coral Bleaching

[Jack Sobel]

	A recent posting from Clive Wilkinson and Tom Hourigan stated that
"Impacts on fisheries are probably the most important short- to medium-term
socioeconomic impact of bleaching."  This does not seem obvious to me and I
was wondering what others thought.  What, if any, evidence supports this?
*********************************
Jack Sobel, Director	
Ecosystem Program	
Center for Marine Conservation
1725 DeSales St. NW, Suite #600
Washington, DC  20036
Phone:  (202) 429-5609
Fax:  (202) 872-0619
Email:  jsobel at dccmc.org
*********************************

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Clive Wilkinson [SMTP:c.wilkinson at aims.gov.au]
> Sent:	Saturday, September 11, 1999 1:48 AM
> To:	Coral-List
> Subject:	Addition to 1997-98 Mass Coral Bleaching
> 
> 1997-98 Mass Coral Bleaching - One Year Later
> 
> Tom Hourigan <Tom.Hourigan at noaa.gov> the Biodiversity specialist at NOAA
> asked for additional information:
> 
> Do you have any quantitative information (or qualitative) on changes in
> fish abundance on reefs where bleaching occurred? Impacts on fisheries are
> probably the most important short- to medium-term socioeconomic impact of
> bleaching.  The Convention on Biological Diversity Secretariat is drafting
> a paper on the impacts of bleaching and any information will go to that
> report.
> 
> The GCRMN will update the report  published in 'Status of Coral Reefs of
> the World: 1998' and on the Internet as: http://www.aims.gov.au/scr1998
> 
> Please send reports and anecdotal observations to c.wilkinson at aims.gov.au
> and Tom.Hourigan at noaa.gov on ALL areas bleached or not. 
> 
> * name and area (approx Lat. and Long.);
> 
> * extent of bleaching in 1997-98 % live coral cover, numbers of species
> bleached or not; other organisms 
> 
> * any recovery or resistance to bleaching and depths;
> 
> * any new recruitment (and what families recruited)?
> 
> * other major comments.
> 
> A few authors have provided results ready for publication - there will be
> an impressive set of papers from this event - we are preparing a synthesis
> of these reports. We need many more reports please .....
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you 
> 
> Clive Wilkinson