Coral reefs have exceptional levels of biodiversity and provide important social and ecological services, including food, coastal protection, recreation, tourism, and cultural connections. However, local stressors and climate change are causing a sharp decline in coral reefs and the more than 230 international agreements with coral reef provisions have failed …
India will get assistance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for conservation and sustainable management of the coral reef ecosystem off the coast of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. In this regard, the department of economic affairs, the ministry of environment and forests and UNDP have recently entered into …
The mysterious pathogen that has been killing coral near the coast of Florida, USA, for the last three years has been finally identified. Scientists Laurie Richardson and his team at the Florida International University in Miami, USA, have said that a bacterium called Sphingomonas is single-handedly responsible for the coral …
global emissions of greenhouse gases may pose serious threats to coral reefs the worldover, warn scientists. Increasing levels of carbon dioxide (co2) are reducing the ability of coral animals to make the limestone skeletons that build reefs. This warning has come in the wake of a report from Australia's Great …
ANCIENT coral reefs containing rich bio-diversity in the north Atlantic are being threatened due to deep sea drilling by oil companies. Marine scientists are concerned that the oil industry is trying to exploit an area off northwest Scotland known as the Atlantic Frontier even before biological surveys are completed. British …
the picturesque islands of Mentawai along the southern coast of Sumatra may be a tourist's delight, but the coral reefs surrounding them tell a story of ecological disaster. Their destruction is suspected to have been caused by the use of explosives and sodium cyanide poison to kill fish in the …
"florida Bay used to be full of sea grasses and corals, but now it is as good as a sewer pond,' observes Brian LaPointe, a marine biologist at Harbour Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce, Florida. Chemicals from agricultural runoff have brought forth the transformation. LaPointe says that the dirty …
The passing of electric current can turn metal into coral reefs. Thomas Goreau, president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, a New York-based reef protection organisation, sparked off the idea of passing electric current through sea water and causing calcium and magnesium to accumulate at the metal cathode. The minerals …
On the island of Bonaire in the Dutch Antilles, the local communities declared their entire reef a marine park in the early '80s. Dive shop operators were granted an operating license giving them access to prime dive spots; scuba divers and snorkellers were charged
DON RICHARDSON on tiny Apo Island, off the southern coast of the Philippines, a sudden squall has chopped a tranquil sea into angry white caps. Though balanced by the outrigger, our small dugout rocks furiously as the waves toss us around. Luckily, Jesus Delmo, president of the Apo Island marine …
The coral reefs off the coast of Thailand may yet be saved because of joint action by conservationists and villagers. A case in point is the village of Sikao in Trang province of southern Thailand where 50 families joined by villagers in 11 other Thai provinces are making a beginning …
A MATERIAL developed by a group of materials scientists and surgeons may take away much of the pain in treating fractures. Led by Brent Constantz of the Norian Corp. in Cupertino, California, the team claims that Norian SRS (SRs stands for skeletal repair system) can be prepared as a paste …
THERE is something down under Down Under that has scientists of prehistory busy revising their notions of a lost past: off the coast of Tasmania has been found a colony of living coral and other marine life pegged at a pedigree of 45 million years, or abouts. Scientists call it …
Peace and economic fortune in West Asia has arrived at a cost too dear to measure in purely financial terms: the environment is drowning under the sheer weight of tourism. The coral reefs of the Red Sea are disintegrating as tourists snorkel dive to watch sea life in these clear …
EVEN THOUGH the profits are small, miners in search of a quick buck are exploiting coral reefs all over the Indian Ocean, causing immense damage to the marine ecology. The problem is particularly severe in Sri Lanka, where 10,000 tonnes of live coral and coral fragments are hauled ashore each …
CORAL reefs in various parts of the world are getting bleached and scientists are debating whether this is an early warning of global warming, or simply a local warming of sea waters. Tom Goreau of the Global Reef Alliance says bleaching results from "expulsion by the coral of their symbiotic …
THE MINISTRY of environment and forests (MEF) has merged the two separate committees on wetlands and mangroves to constitute a National Committee on Wetlands, Mangroves and Coral Reefs. But if the new committee is to achieve any success in saving these precious ecological resources, it will have to solve the …
WIDESPREAD deforestation and heavy siltation are steadily destroying the beautiful, but ecologically fragile, coral reefs of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago. The islands experience high rainfall, 50 per cent to 90 per cent of which runs off into the sea. Bad land use practices result in high turbidity which then …
