[Coral-List] Community consensus on whether or not local efforts are of value to coral reef conservation.
Les Kaufman
lesk at bu.edu
Thu Nov 2 10:31:40 EST 2006
Tom and James make highly valid points that are familiar to most of
us. It would be useful to agree on whether or not local efforts are
of any value to coral reef conservation. The answer must not be so
obvious
as suggested in recent posts- i.e., that local efforts are irrelevant
because climate change is global- given that both Tom and James are
involved in aggressive advocacy against land-based nutrient sources,
and Tom has pioneered experiments in local reef restoration (Biorock
installations) that have, ironically, been criticized as pissing in
the wind. We must presume that both Tom and James feel that local
efforts can and do matter, in some way.
The Marshall and Schuttenberg "A Reef manager's Guide to Coral
Bleaching" is actually a very useful educational piece. However, the
authors are strangely mute on those issues of greatest importance to
managers interested in keeping their corals from dying. For example,
in Section 4.3, on page 109, there is a section entitled "Can corals
adapt to climate change?" The possibility of adaptation is raised,
but the question is never answered. The chapter ends, however, by
embracing the inevitability of widespread decline in hard corals and
radical changes in reef ecology. Perhaps that is their answer. The
final chapter of the book is supposed to be about "Enabling
Management" but is actually just about international law and
outreach. Again, an answer- it is hopeless except for diplomacy and
activism that resists global climate change. The appendix on the GBR
coral reef bleaching response plan is all about watching and
carefully documenting the death of corals, and then telling lots of
other people that they have died. So in fact, the book is quite
realistic. It reads a lot like one of those pamphlets you can get at
a doctor's office about this or that terminal disease- there is
excellent advice in them about making final preparations.
Many of us have retracked our research and education efforts to focus
on making local action as effective as possible in enabling
individual coral reef sites to resist and to recover from global
impactors. Intense dedication of this kind does not mean that
anybody has lost their perspective or lessened their participation in
the effort to get the world to wake up to the importance of arresting
and reversing our global atmospheric chemistry experiment. Since the
contributors to this list include some of the wisest and most
experienced professionals in coral reef biology, economics, and
conservation, this life change that so many of us are bound up in
would suggest that we have some reason to expect a modicum of gain
from local management efforts. If this is true, we should be saying
so instead of wasting time arguing over pieces of the elephant. If
it is not true, but simply wishful thinking, and we know that for
fact, then perhaps we really ought to be putting all of our effort
into documenting the death of the wondrous Holocene coral reef
assemblages so that future generations have an easier time with their
palaeontology, and are perhaps even motivated to change the world
once more to make it safe again for coral-dominated reef communities.
The alternative options for action are clear.
1. Continue international pressure to resist global climate change,
but focus major resources on the practice of maximally enhancing the
survival and repair potential for coral reef communities.
2. Put nearly all our efforts into resisting global climate change,
but allocate a small portion of our collective resources to
documenting coral reef decline to provide visuals and data for our
international efforts.
We could be much more effective if we at least had some meta-
awareness of who is allied with Option 1 versus Option 2. Then the
two groups could sort out and we would have something resembling a
battle plan as an academy, with two divisions, each with some chance
of finding its mark.
I happen to be an Option 1 kind of guy. I'd like to know who is on
my team, and very much hope that we have a big team for Option 2 as
well. Then we can do both, and then we are doing everything
possible, and then we can look our kids and grandkids in the eye and
say with conviction that we did our best.
Les
Les Kaufman
Professor of Biology
Boston University Marine Program
and
Senior PI
Marine Management Area Science
Conservation International
“I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.”
George W. Bush
Saginaw, Michigan; September 29, 2000
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