[Coral-List] A Swim Through Time on Carysfort Reef; EFFORT TO ASSEMBLE A LIST OF REMAINING HEALTHY CARIBBEAN CORAL REEFS

Fri Jul 31 18:56:39 UTC 2020

Good points Steven.  Maybe I shouldn't have read Collapse, but now I can't
shed the thought that at a local scale, history shows that human nature has
repeatedly doomed us to the overuse of natural resources and the collapse
of ecosystems.  Unfortunately, the effects of our self-interest have grown
to a global scale, but human nature persists.

I am with you that a lot of good people, including you, Phil, Jeremy, and
many others, tried very hard to call for change.  I don't think it fell on
deaf ears, but those same ears were also getting more attractive offers.

With all that, I still marvel at the ability of the ocean to respond to
improving conditions and changes in management.  I don't think we should
throw in the towel yet.

Steve

On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 2:20 PM S Miller via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> Hi Phil and Coral-List
>
> Great historic record from Carysfort Reef.  How do you like being called
> historic?  The second generation of coral reef scientists is now old. I
> remember one of my mentors saying early in his career that there weren't
> many gray-haired coral reef scientists. Now?  Many gray hairs across
> generations.
>
> I saw Carysfort in the late 1980s and Carbbean reefs in the 1970s.
> There's no question about what we lost.
>
> There's also no question about what we continue to lose and why.
>
> But I'm confused about your comment that "we have not figured out how to
> keep reefs from disappearing."  If by "we" you mean coral reef
> scientists, then you are putting too much on the shoulders of our
> community.  If you mean society as the collective "we," then you are
> correct that reefs are viewed as a resource to exploit.
>
> Still, it's a good question to ask if our community has failed coral
> reefs.  Is it our fault because we didn't explain things well enough,
> fast enough, or because we lack emotion or sex appeal in our outreach?
> Or, did we fail because we monitored reef decline instead of doing
> something else?  My view is that we did everything that could be done.
> Could we have done more?  Could we have communicated more effectively?
> Probably.  Would it have mattered?  No.
>
> After all, damage across most of our planet from global warming
> continues despite dozens of NGOs spending tens of billions of dollars to
> educate and influence policy makers. They failed, too.
>
> You didn't exactly say it this way, but our society values other things
> more and it's not even close.
>
> So what happens now?  What choices do we have?
>
> It's not that complicated, in my humble opinion. We do what most of us
> have always done.
>
> Act local and think global still matters. Just about every coral reef
> benthic ecology paper today addresses this idea in one way or another,
> with a plea at the end about the need to stop carbon emissions.
>
> I also believe that restoration has a role to play, despite the
> relentless advance of global warming.
>
> Thanks for posting the Carysfort Reef video.
>
> Best Regards
>
> Steven
>
> You can read about our restoration views in a recent paper on
> restoration results in Florida.
>
> https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231817
>
> PLOS ONE, May 2020  Survivorship and growth in staghorn coral projects
> in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
>
>
>
>
>
> On 7/28/2020 11:05 AM, Phillip Dustan via Coral-List wrote:
> > I made this video to open eyes about the dramatic changes that have
> > occurred in a short time.
> > Many of the current crop of reef biologists have no idea of what we've
> lost.
> > All the nature films to increase people's love for the sea, all the
> > monitoring projects that increase our resolution, all the management, all
> > the restoration, all the rhetoric about protecting reefs, etc.... on and
> on
> > have not worked.
> > The mantra that people protect what they love has proven false.
> > It's more like, "People exploit what they need to make money, then move
> on
> > to richer places to do the same over and over...."
> > While the scientific community has greatly increased our resolving power
> to
> > watch reefs degrade, we have not figured out how to keep reefs from
> > disappearing...
> >     This is the point of my offering at this time - more of an emotional
> > plea than a documentary.
> > I've always thought a coffee table book titled :How they Die" about all
> the
> > human activities that kill coral reefs would be interesting as all the
> > current and past books are eye candy divorced from current reality.
> >    Maybe a website of  such atrocities would help jar people into action?
> > Reefs are ecosystems, not resources.
> >   Phil
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 9:03 AM Steve Gittings - NOAA Federal <
> > steve.gittings at noaa.gov> wrote:
> >
> >> Alina - I was part of that 1981 group with Tom Bright at Carysfort
> Light.
> >> It was with mixed feelings thatI had to leave a couple weeks early to
> >> attend my wedding!  Still, looking back, it was such a privilege to see
> >> such a seemingly healthy place just a few years before the coral world
> >> changed so dramatically.
> >>
> >> I like the idea of hearing about places that haven't changed much since
> >> the 70s or before.  I'll put the Flower Garden Banks out there.  The
> >> earliest dives and pictures there were in the early 60s and the first
> >> measurements of coral cover in the early 70s.  Very little has changed,
> >> though macroalgae is more persistent since the *Diadema *dieoff.  Coral
> >> cover, which when first measured was just under 50% on the reef caps, is
> >> now closer to 60%.  There are lionfish, but impacts to native fish are
> not
> >> evident yet, and they are trying to control abundance with culling.  It
> is
> >> certainly not without threats, but the banks seem to benefit from their
> >> isolation.
> >>
> >> Steve
> >>
> >> On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 8:45 AM Alina Szmant via Coral-List <
> >> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Thanks Phil for the nostalgia. I first visited Carysfort in 1981 when I
> >>> stayed for two weeks out at the lighthouse with Tom Bright's group
> doing
> >>> nutrient uptake experiments with A cervicornis, and it was incredibly
> >>> beautiful. The US Coast Guard had trouble bringing their boats to the
> >>> lighthouse pier because the coral was so thick and shallow everywhere.
> From
> >>> the light house tower, one could watch giant blue and rainbow
> parrotfishes
> >>> swimming among the A palmata colonies that extended seaward for 100 m
> or
> >>> more on the reef flat. When I returned with Peter Glyn  and a class of
> >>> students the spring of 1984, there wasn't any live Acropora coral
> anywhere
> >>> (we did transects). It was shocking! In the mid 2000's Margaret Miller
> and
> >>> I tried to do our coral larval rearing research working from the
> >>> lighthouse, and still almost no coral, and the large Orbicella colonies
> >>> were mostly dead as well. I am glad I had a chance to see this reef
> (and
> >>> many similar ones in Puerto Rico) back in the day, because I am pretty
> sure
> >>> they won't recover within what is left of my lifetime. There may be
> great
> >>> live coral gardens in places like the Solomons, but the situation in
> the
> >>> Caribbean is dire and getting worse in my experience.
> >>>
> >>> That said: I think it would be useful for Coral-List researchers to
> start
> >>> a list of places within the Caribbean that are still close to what was
> the
> >>> norm back in the 1970s. If there are clusters of localities that
> haven't
> >>> been impacted by bleaching, disease epidemics, flattened by major
> storms
> >>> but recovered, that would be a worthwhile list to compile and serve as
> a
> >>> basis for investigating factors that have allowed some places to
> survive
> >>> while others have succumbed.
> >>>
> >>> I volunteer to assemble such information if anyone out there is willing
> >>> to share, and I send out an updated list monthly to all on Coral List.
> If
> >>> you know of sites that still look like the 1975 version of Carysfort
> and
> >>> can document this with short video, collection of photos or even
> better...
> >>> data... and want to be part of such an effort, please contact me.
> >>>
> >>> Best,
> >>>
> >>> Alina
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> *************************************************************************
> >>> Dr. Alina M. Szmant, CEO
> >>> CISME Instruments LLC
> >>> 210 Braxlo Lane,
> >>> Wilmington NC 28409 USA
> >>> AAUS Scientific Diving Lifetime Achievement Awardee
> >>> cell: 910-200-3913
> >>> Website:www.cisme-instruments.com
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> **********************************************************
> >>> Videos:  CISME Promotional Video 5:43 min
> >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAYeR9qX71A&t=6s
> >>> CISME Short version Demo Video 3:00 min
> >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa4SqS7yC08
> >>> CISME Cucalorus 10x10 Sketch   4:03 minhttps://youtu.be/QCo3oixsDVA
> >>>
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: Coral-List<coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>  On Behalf Of
> >>> Phillip Dustan via Coral-List
> >>> Sent: Monday, July 27, 2020 8:47 AM
> >>> To: Coral List<coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> >>> Subject: [Coral-List] A Swim Through Time on Carysfort Reef
> >>>
> >>> Hi Listers,
> >>> We talk a lot about  management and conservation but the reality is
> >>> humanity lacks the political will to address the fundamentals unless
> there
> >>> is a direct and instant return on investment.
> >>> Science tells us that coral reefs are ecosystems, not resources. The
> very
> >>> adaptations that enable them to thrive in nutrient poor tropical seas
> >>> leaves them vulnerable to humans. Maybe one day we will act on that
> >>> reality, but right now I fear we are just trying to make ourselves feel
> >>> better, or develop a more and more precise way to document the
> collapse of
> >>> reefs all the while  increasing the level of funding for our
> labs/agencies.
> >>> This approach has not, and is not working.
> >>>
> >>>   Something to think about while most of us are out of the water this
> >>> summer.
> >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCPJE7UE6sA
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Phillip Dustan PhD
> >>> Charleston SC  29424
> >>> 843-953-8086 office
> >>> 843-224-3321 (mobile)
> >>>
> >>> "When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound
> fast
> >>> by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in
> the
> >>> universe. "
> >>> *                                         John Muir 1869*
> >>>
> >>> *Raja Ampat Sustainability Project video*
> >>>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RR2SazW_VY&fbclid=IwAR09oZkEk8wQkK6LN3XzVGPgAWSujACyUfe2Ist__nYxRRSkDE_jAYqkJ7A
> >>> *Bali Coral Bleaching 2016 video*
> >>>
> >>> *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOfLTnPSUo
> >>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOfLTnPSUo>*
> >>> TEDx Charleston on saving coral reefs
> >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwENBNrfKj4
> >>> Google Scholar Citations:
> >>> https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HCwfXZ0AAAAJ
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Coral-List mailing list
> >>> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> >>> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Coral-List mailing list
> >>> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> >>> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >>>
> >> --
> >> Dr. Steve Gittings, Science Coordinator
> >> NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
> >> 1305 East West Hwy., N/ORM62
> >> Silver Spring, MD  20910
> >> (240) 533-0708 (w), (301) 529-1854 (c1), (301) 821-0857 (c2)
> >>
> >>
> >>
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-- 
Dr. Steve Gittings, Science Coordinator
NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
1305 East West Hwy., N/ORM62
Silver Spring, MD  20910
(240) 533-0708 (w), (301) 529-1854 (c1), (301) 821-0857 (c2)

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