"We're frustrated with how slowly things are moving with coral reef conservation in the United States," said Fiorenza Micheli, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station. "Tiny steps are being taken, but they really don't address the overall problem."
Micheli and Stanford graduate student Carrie Kappel are among 11 researchers from the United States and Australia who co-authored the Science essay, which focused on America's two major coral reef systems in Hawaii and Florida.
Florida's coral reef barrier stretches some 200 miles along the Florida Keys and plays an important role in the state's economy. "Annual revenues from reef tourism are $1.6 billion, but the economic future of the Keys is gloomy owing to accelerating ecological degradation," the authors noted. "Florida's reefs are well over halfway toward ecological extinctionLarge predatory fishes continue to decrease, reefs are increasingly dominated by seaweed and alarming diseases have emerged."
In 1990, the U.S. government established the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary to protect the reef--third longest in the world behind Australia and Belize. But pollution, overfishing, disease and thermal stress caused by climate change remain significant problems throughout the sanctuary, according to the authors. "Conversion of 16,000 cesspools to centralized sewage treatment and control of other land-based pollution have only just begun," they noted, and only 6 percent of sanctuary waters have been set aside as "no take zones" where fishing is prohibited.
In contrast, the neighboring countries of Cuba and the Bahamas hav
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Contact: Mark Shwartz
mshwartz@stanford.edu
650-723-9296
Stanford University
17-Mar-2005