Will you still be able to see the beauty that is the coral reef?

We have wondered when we would start to lose some of the worlds wonders, maybe we need to do something about it. How long will we have all the coral reefs over the world and what’s causing them to vanish? Everybody knows of something that is affecting the coral reefs, but not everything is so clear, somethings we need to find out about.

 

Interestingly the Caribbean contains just over 20% of the world’s coral reef and there is a huge amount of damage being done to it. Honduras is a place where they grow several different plantains including bananas, these require a lot of fertilizer. It is important to realise that the fertilizer used contains nutrients that are damaging to fish and coral. Fertilizer and erosion are the two biggest culprits for damage to the coral reef in this area and they are both caused by farming, tree felling and building of new properties. But the main thing we don’t really realise is that fish are massively important to the coral reefs. Fish provide coral with the necessary grooming that it needs, this takes off bacteria that damage the coral and keep it clean, they also eat seaweed, and seaweed suffocates coral and any other plants around it by drawing in all the oxygen.

 

Apparently fish have dropped in population rates by around 70-95%, a massive fall. Fishing too much isn’t just detremental to our food supply; it is decreasing the corals chance to survive.

 

Another problem is an obvious one, Global Warming. This is the big one, rises in global warming have created acids in the sea and reduced the amount of Aragonite. This is a carbonate mineral that coral requires to stay alive and even begin growth. It is said that in about 40 years the acid levels will be too high to sustain coral and it will stop growing.

 

However there are few things that we can do to try and help. There are some proactive schemes around that allow us to get are hands dirty and have a good time. If you do go on luxury holidays or Caribbean holidays you could have the option to go and volunteer for a coral clean up operation, where you can help clean coral underwater or on the shore. This would have to be some of the best volunteer work you could, diving with the fish and doing your bit.

 

Also if you go fishing around coral, try not to drop anchor, you will tear the coral apart and damage anything living around it

 

So if your thinking about going abroad or maybe somewhere tropical, maybe some of you want to have weddings abroad, it might be a good idea to get there as soon as you can. If you want you could chip in with the divers and help the coral survive, you never know how much longer it will be around.

 

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