[Coral-List] What do coral reef scientists perceive are the major threats to Caribbean coral reefs?

[Magnus Johnson]

Thanks Doug - you are quite right.

POPs = persistent organic pollutants.  There is a decent Wikipedia article on them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_organic_pollutant

In brief they are chemicals that we have made, that nature has trouble dealing with and that can have nasty effects on the environment and take many, many years to break down.  They are linked to plastic particles because the broken down remnants of plastic bags, bottles etc that are irretrievably floating around in our seas concentrate POPs, suspension feeders (e.g. coral??) may then take up the particles.

There is a good paper by Andrady here http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X11003055
________________________________________
From: Douglas Fenner [douglasfennertassi at gmail.com]
Sent: 19 April 2014 02:51
To: Magnus  Johnson
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] What do coral reef scientists perceive are the major threats to Caribbean coral reefs?

Magnus,
   What are "POPs"???  We need to define all acronyms, many or most of the readers of coral-list have some other language as a first language, and even some like me for which English is a first language, don't know what some of the acronyms stand for, like "POPs."


On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 1:38 AM, Magnus Johnson <m.johnson at hull.ac.uk<mailto:m.johnson at hull.ac.uk>> wrote:
Plastics + POPs? Invasive species?  These are two threats that, like climate change, we will struggle to deal with and should be on your list.

I think fishing, while it should be there, should be bottom of the list!  Also population growth (1 australian ~ 12.5 indians in terms of carbon emissions as an indicator) in my opinion is, like fishing,  one of the obvious rather than most potent threats.

What about global inequality?  How can you stop a man or woman going fishing on a reef to feed their children when the only alternative you can offer is cocacola-isation of their cultures and poorly paid servant labour to the fat western middle classes?


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