[Coral-List] Great Barrier Reef

Douglas Fenner douglasfennertassi at gmail.com
Fri Jul 30 02:24:34 UTC 2021


Did anybody notice the disconnect between the statements about the Great
Barrier Reef being in danger, and my earlier post pointing to the latest
AIMS (Australian Institute of Marine Science) monitoring report, where
coral cover was shown to have recovered from drastic previous declines in
both the northern and southern sections?  Which leads me to paraphrase Mark
Twain in 'The death of the GBR has been greatly exaggerated.'  One of the
news items, I think I remember, quoted someone as saying 'why haven't the
news media covered that?'
      That got me to thinking.  For one thing, news media are often biased
towards reporting bad news,. For instance, when a hurricane (typhoon,
cyclone) is hitting an area, damage reports are often one of the top news
stories.  If it passes, and indeed there was devastation (to peoples'
houses or reefs), there is often more coverage of that.  BUT, if it turns
out there was no damage, there is no reporting.  Now maybe there are
sophisticated studies of this phenomenon, but that's way outside what I
study, apologies.  But it seems like there is a bias towards bad news.
That said, the obvious driver of that is the audience.  People are more
interested in bad news, and in unusual news of course.  Maybe that is
actually a wise choice.  The very worst possible things that can happen to
a person are more important to avoid than the very best possible things
that can happen to you are to make happen.  Maybe the same for
reefs, houses, etc.
      Basically, for reefs, many of us have been screaming our heads off
for longer than we can easily remember.  A few grossly underpaid people
working for conservation NGOs can't save the world's coral reefs.  Neither
can a bunch of white coated scientists who would get lost if they were
outside their labs (to exaggerate some).  Our only hope is that the public
pushes their government leaders to take action.  Because they can mobilize
a larger portion of society, the mobilization that would be required to fix
this.  They can't do it if the public doesn't want it done.  So we're
raising the alarm.  We know what the problems are, and we know the broad
outlines of the required solutions.  So raising the alarm is necessary to
get it fixed.
      That said, there is the serious question of whether the AIMS
monitoring data is an "all clear" signal that in fact the reef is not in
danger.  I'd argue that it is very much not that.  First, look at the
graphs.  How many drastic declines and recoveries do you see?  I see only
two.  Where were they in the time series?  Very near the end.  They are
recent, they are unprecedented in the monitoring record.  It IS heartening
to see that the coral cover recovered.  BUT, this is highly likely to be
the first two opening roundq in a battle the GBR is NOT going to win.
These events are going to be coming more often, with less time for the reef
to recover.  Ultimately, like someone who gets cancer, has it removed, but
then gets it back, and ultimately it has spread and kills them, the reef is
not going to recover at some point.  All the predictions for the future are
that that is going to happen.
       In addition, as has been pointed out many times, coral cover isn't
everything.  If you have a reef dominated by 500 year old giant massive
Porites, and bleaching kills them all, and then Acropora grows like weeds
and so coral cover returns to where it was, the reef has actually not
recovered, only one aspect is recovered.  And those 500 year old colonies
are not going to be able to recover in any of our lifespans,  Not even
within many human generations.  Think what science was like 500 years ago.
      So the GBR is buying us a bit more time to get our act together and
get things fixed.  We're darn lucky at this point.  In my opinion, we would
do well to not miss the opportunity.
      And knowing what we know about the threats, aren't ALL the world's
reefs now threatened??  Isn't that as plain as can be??  Isn't that what
the word "threatened" means??  We'd better confess to it and get to work.
Cheers, Doug

On Sat, Jul 24, 2021 at 11:29 AM Douglas Fenner <
douglasfennertassi at gmail.com> wrote:

> More comprehensive coverage of events:
> Great Barrier Reef avoids "in danger" tag after Australian government
> lobbying convinces UNESCO.
>
>
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-23/great-barrier-reef-avoids-in-danger-unesco-tag/100319652
>
> World Heritage Committee agrees not to place Great Barrier Reef on 'in
> danger' list
>
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/23/world-heritage-committee-agrees-not-to-place-great-barrier-reef-on-in-danger-list
>
> Cheers, Doug
>
> --
> Douglas Fenner
> Lynker Technologies, LLC, Contractor
> NOAA Fisheries Service
> Pacific Islands Regional Office
> Honolulu
> and:
> Coral Reef Consulting
> PO Box 997390
> Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799-6298  USA
>
> Slashing emissions by 2050 isn't enough.  We can bring down temperature
> now.
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/climate-deadlines-super-pollutants-hfcs-methane/2021/04/15/acb8c612-9d7d-11eb-b7a8-014b14aeb9e4_story.html
>
> Humans have destroyed 97% of earth's ecosystems
> (well, more like only 3% are fully intact)
> https://a.msn.com/r/2/BB1fH7DT?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare
>
> Study: One-third of plant and animal species could be gone in 50 years.
> (but 2-4 times worse in tropics)
> https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-02/uoa-soo021220.php
> https://www.pnas.org/content/117/8/4211
>
>


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