14 May 2005
To: letters@newscientist.com
From: Dr. Thomas J. Goreau (goreau@bestweb.net)
Subject: Fiddling While Rome Burns
Dear Sirs,
World Bank and International Coral Reef Initiative
expert recommendations, "Tsunami ravaged reefs best left to recover
unaided" (New Scientist May 13 2005) is not just wishful thinking: by
fiddling while Rome burns it will actually increase reef decline by
preventing restoration of damaged habitat.
In the recent Global Warming Conference in New York the
opposite conclusions were reached by a team familiar with reefs in
Indonesia, Thailand, Maldives, Sri Lanka, India, Seychelles, and Mauritius.
We found that most Indian Ocean corals had been killed long before the
tsunami by global warming, sewage, pollution, sediment runoff following
deforestation, dredging and mining, new diseases, and use of bombs and
poisons for fishing. Tsunami wave energy was focused onto very small areas,
leaving most reefs unscathed. The tsunami had only relatively small impacts
overall on reef degradation, or to needs for large scale restoration of
reefs to protect fisheries, tourism, shore protection, and biodiversity.
In contrast, the World Bank and ICRI have long pushed the
agenda of the US and Australian Governments that reef damage is minor, is
not due to global warming and other human actions but some sort of "natural"
cycle, and "resilient reefs" will just bounce back all by themselves no
matter what we do. This systematic misinformation has prevented developing
countries from taking action that would make a difference.
Their latest report continues this nonsensical tradition.
It claims marine protected areas can save corals and fish, even though they
are in fact full of dead and dying corals being killed by factors beyond
their control. Blaming the victim, they suggest that preventing fishing
communities from eating will make the fish come back, but ignore the fact
that habitat degradation is so severe almost everywhere that the carrying
capacity for large and diverse fish populations has been lost.
Once again, the World Bank and ICRI totally ignores
low cost reef restoration methods that increase coral growth rates 3-5
times, increase healing from stress more than 20 times, increases survival
from high temperatures 16-50 times, can keep corals alive where they would
die and grow new reefs in a few years where they cannot recover naturally,
greatly increases fish and shellfish populations, and quickly turned
severely eroding beaches in the Maldives into growing ones. These methods
are already being used in over 15 developing countries (New Scientist, 06
July 2002), and cost far less than any engineering alternative, or the
inaction the World Bank/ICRI study proposes. More information is available
at: http://www.globalcoral.org
The real crisis is not natural disasters, to which reefs
are long adapted, but constantly intensifying global human pressures, to
which they are not. Only active large-scale habitat quality improvement can
bring back our corals and fish. If coral reef countries continue to be
fooled by absurd recommendations from World Bank and ICRI "experts" they
will lose their only chance to save their marine resources, coastlines, and
economies.
Sincerely yours,
Tom Goreau
