THE FUTURE of the marine ecology of the entire northern KwaZulu-Natal coast could be placed in jeopardy by plans to scour the sea for heavy minerals and gemstones, say critics of the proposed venture.
The latest Zululand application for mine prospecting, for the mouth of the Tugela River, has triggered alarm bells about the safety of a rich fish and prawn nursery ground.
The application has raised fears that the discovery of mineral deposits could lead to huge undersea trenches and opencast mining operations, disrupting a unique, complex sea food chain linked to the marine ecology of the entire northern KZN coast.
The application to prospect in a block almost 50km long and 22km wide has been lodged by Fast Pace Trade and Invest 58 (Pty) Ltd.
According to geologist Ian Basson from the Western Cape, he and University of KwaZulu-Natal geology lecturer Ron Uken, Durban geologist Damian Smith and black empowerment mining services group Siyakhula Sonke Corporation are shareholders, with 25 percent each.
Siyakhula’s chief executive is former Anglo Platinum transformation head Fred Arendse and the business development director is Champ Tekiso, a former assistant manager at PwC. Siyakhula also has interests in Redpath Mining and Sekgwa Mining Services.
Apart from gems such as garnet, the company is looking for heavy minerals such as rutile, ilmenite, zircon and iron ore, which are also mined nearby by Richards Bay Minerals and Exxaro.
If mining went ahead, it would be the first underwater mining venture for heavy minerals off the South African coast, although similar mining is done off the Australian and South American coasts.
The company does not have any record or experience in offshore mining, although some of its members have done extensive geological research and prospecting work for companies such as Richards Bay Minerals. They have also been involved in exploration or research at the Rossing uranium mine in Namibia, and gold and diamond mining in Tanzania and Botswana.
The application is restricted to prospecting rather than mining, but if large quantities of heavy minerals or gemstones were found, this could trigger a major controversy about the short-term benefits of mining as opposed to the long-term health and productivity of a nationally important marine environment.
Rudy van der Elst, director of the Oceanographic Research Institute in Durban, said the prospect of undersea mining on the Tugela Banks was of “major concern”.
“It’s not just the valuable prawn and fish nursery. If mining went ahead, it could affect the marine ecology of the entire North Coast.”
Environmental consultants acting for Fast Pace advertised the application two weeks ago and want written feedback before Thursday.
Van der Elst said the institute had asked for the company’s environmental management plan, but had not seen it yet.
“We have indicated that the notice period is too short. You can’t have such a tight schedule, particularly when we have not been provided with adequate information to comment properly.”
Van der Elst said he was unaware of similar ventures off South Africa.
Depending on the methods, mining could stir up clouds of sand and sediments that could have serious effects on the marine environment.
Bianca McKelvey, conservation manager of the Wildlife and Environment Society, noted that the Tugela was among the country’s biggest rivers and deposited vast quantities of sand, sediment and food nutrients into the sea.
The muddy environment was an ideal nursery for prawns and other creatures.
“Research shows that it is also a nursery for a larger group of species which go all the way up to Mozambique and beyond.
“In a worst-case scenario you could end up with trenches and an opencast mine underwater… the removal of large volumes of sand could… wipe out prawn fishing.”
Basson, also principal director of Tect Geological Consulting in Somerset West, said these fears were “premature and alarmist”.
He said only 3 percent of prospected areas were eventually mined globally.
Prospecting would involve desktop studies and the collection of sediment samples and low-energy seismic tests. Mining would be “largely benign”.
“It is pretty much what RBM and Exxaro are doing on shore. It is not as if there are coral reefs. It is basically an underwater dune field.
Asked if Fast Pace was acting or planning to act for a large mining company, Basson said: “We have not really thought that far ahead.”
A Companies and Intellectual Properties Commission data search suggests that Basson and Smith are the only two directors of the company.
South Africa: Researchers gain a glimpse of treasures under the sea
DESPITE centuries of scientific inquiry, so little is known about most of Earth’s estimated 8.7 million living species that even a tiny series of marine samples can result in the discovery of many new species.
This was again the experience of a team of marine biologists from UCT, who recently found more than 10 species new to South Africa, and two new to science, all within a single sub-group of crustaceans and sampled from an area just two metres square in Sodwana Bay on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast.
Team leader Professor Charles Griffiths, of UCT’s Marine Biology Research Centre, said they had been able to determine the status of these particular species simply because he had the experience to identify them accurately.
“There would be many more in the other groups which we cannot identify with certainty.”
Griffiths was responding to the Cape Argus’s request for comment on new research by scientists of the Census of Marine Life (CoML) project. The findings, published last week, put the number of species at 8.7 million, of which less than 15 percent have been formally described by science.
About 6.5 million of these species live on land and 2.2 million in the ocean, according to their calculation which, al-though an estimate, has the highest degree of certainty of any estimates yet made.
Griffiths, who was leader of the CoML group in Africa, said the researchers had made some assumptions in their new estimate – for example, that the taxonomic groupings of families, genera and species all had a similar structure.
“But the fact that most species on Earth are undescribed is certainly true and accepted by all taxonomists, and I can provide many local examples where a tiny series of marine samples has resulted in discovery of many new species.
“I absolutely agree with the comment (by Lord Robert May of Oxford, past president of Britain’s Royal Society) that it’s crazy that we can list all the books in the Library of Congress, or all the telephone subscribers or taxpayers in any country, but not all the species on Earth.”
Professor Melodie McGeoch, general manager of SA National Parks’ Cape Research Centre, said the new research provided “quite a bit” to think about.
“My first impression, on having given it a quick read, is that it provides numbers that seem much more reasonable than previous approaches, and which at the same time are more defensible.
“The method used is a big improvement – it’s more robust – on previous methods.
“It’s interesting to note that insects at the very least make up more than 12 percent of all species on the planet, and the percentage will be higher than this. The same method can be applied across marine and terrestrial environments and across all groups of species. This wasn’t possible with any degree of confidence before.”
Professor Gavin Maneveldt, head of the department of biodiversity and conservation biology at UWC, said it was accepted among biological scientists that most species across the planet were undiscovered and undescribed.
“Most of this biological diversity it to be found in the oceans. The oceans contain roughly 99 percent of the living space on the planet and it’s estimated that around 80 percent of all life on the planet is found under the ocean’s surface.”
Zanzibar: Chumbe Island Coral Park receives UN recognition
"The work of Chumbe Island Coral Park Ltd towards the sustainable management and protection of the Chumbe coral reefs has been recognized by the UN Secretary General in his report to the General Assembly on Protection of coral reefs for sustainable livelihoods and development, in preparation for the Rio+20 - United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 4-6 June 2012.
Under the heading "The role of national legislation in protecting coral reefs (including importance of inclusion of indigenous/local communities)" on Page 21, the report says:
81. A noted example for PES within the context of coral reefs habitat is the private, non-profit Chumbe Island Coral Park Ltd (CHICOP) in Tanzania. The Government of Zanzibar established a protected area around the island and its fringing coral reef in 1994 and gave the management rights to CHICOP, which is responsible for implementing the CHICOP Management Plans 1995-2016."
Decade-Long Study Reveals Recurring Patterns of Viruses in the Open Ocean
Viruses fill the ocean and have a significant effect on ocean biology, specifically marine microbiology, according to a professor of biology at UC Santa Barbara and his collaborators.
Craig A. Carlson, professor with UCSB's Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, is the senior author of a study of marine viruses published this week by theInternational Society for Microbial Ecology Journal, of the Nature Publishing Group.
The new findings, resulting from a decade of research, reveal striking recurring patterns of marine virioplankton dynamics in the open sea, which have implications regarding our understanding of cycling of nutrients in the world's oceans.
Marine viruses encompass enormous genetic diversity, affect biogeochemical cycling of elements, and partially control aspects of microbial production and diversity, according to the scientists. Despite their importance in the ocean, there has been a surprising lack of data describing virioplankton distributions over time and depth in open oceanic systems.
"Microbial interactions, between oceanic viruses and bacteria, take place on the nanometer scale but are extremely important in governing the flow of energy and the cycling of nutrients like carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus on the ecosystem scale of the world's oceans," said Carlson. The scientists studied microbes in the water column of the Saragasso Sea, off of Bermuda, for a decade.
"Although we can't see them with our naked eye, marine microbes are the dominant life forms in our oceans," said Rachel J. Parsons, first author and a microbial oceanographer with the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Science. "They comprise 95 percent of the living biomass in the oceans -- more than all the krill, fish and whales put together. They grow at rates many times faster than larger animals. As a result of their sheer numbers, and the rates at which they grow, they are responsible for transforming and shaping the distribution of life's essential elements -- and they help control climate on our planet. Without marine microbes, life as we know it could not persist."
According to the scientists, there are approximately 10 million viruses in every drop of surface seawater, yet despite the high number of viruses very few are infectious agents to larger animals like fish, whales, or humans. That is because almost all of the marine viruses are "phages" -- viruses that specifically attack marine bacteria. Marine phages cannot carry out cellular metabolism and must therefore rely on the metabolic machinery of their bacterioplankton hosts to replicate. This warfare often kills the hosts, causing them to spill their internal nutrient content into the surrounding water.
In the new paper, the authors describe remarkably regular annual patterns of virioplankton abundance, tied to ocean physics and chemistry. These patterns in turn control the dynamics of the bacterioplankton hosts. The data suggest that a significant fraction of viruses in the upper photic, or light, zone of the subtropical oceanic gyres may be cyanophages -- viruses that infect photosynthetic bacterioplankton.
If true, the dominance of cyanophages in open ocean systems has significant biogeochemical implications. Viral-mediated breakdown of cyanobacteria could benefit phytoplankton through the release of macro- and micronutrients. Viral breakdown of host cells converts particulate material to suspended or dissolved materials such as amino acids and nucleic acids, effectively resulting in the retention of nitrogen, phosphorus, and iron within the surface water. These dissolved materials fuel microbial activity in an otherwise nutrient-poor open ocean system.
In this decade-long study, the scientists studied in unprecedented detail the temporal and vertical patterns of virioplankton abundance within the open ocean. Samples were collected throughout the upper 300 meters of the water column every month, beginning in the year 2000, at an open ocean hydrostation called the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) site. The additional data collected as part of the BATS program provides oceanographic details regarding ocean physics, chemistry, and biology that are extremely valuable for interpreting the observed trends in marine phages.
"This high-resolution, decadal survey provides insight into the possible controls of virioplankton dynamics and the role they play in regulating biology and nutrient cycling in the open ocean," said Carlson. "The data provided by this study will now be utilized by ecosystem and biogeochemical modelers in an attempt to better understand how microbial processes affect the larger biogeochemical cycling in the ocean."
Other co-authors of the study are Mya Breitbart, of the University of South Florida, and Michael W. Lomas, of the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Science
President James Michel Friday met the chief executives of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the Australian Institute of Marine Science and James Cook University in Townsville to discuss greater cooperation between these world class centres of marine research and conservation, and the Seychelles government and the University of Seychelles.
“The three centres of marine research in Townsville have given us a valuable insight into the management of marine national parks, ideas for new tourism and scientific projects, as well as experience of the wonders of the underwater world which we share,” said President Michel.
The President visited the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority aquarium and was briefed on the possibilities of creating such an educational and tourism attraction in Seychelles.
“This would be a wonderful addition to our portfolio of eco-tourism projects and to showcase our natural heritage as well as provide the resources for marine research, educational visits and a new tourism venture.”
The President and his delegation also discussed marine park authority management and best practice measures to keep marine parks clean, safe and preserve the biodiversity of these vulnerable environments.
At the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the President toured the facilities and was presented with some of the latest reef and climate change researches.
“I am impressed with the similarity between the research of AIMS and the effects of climate change that we are experiencing in Seychelles. They can help us with mitigation strategies and we can contribute to the valuable work they are undertaking,” said the President.
The vice-chancellor of James Cook University (JCU), Sandra Harding, welcomed President Michel as well as the president and the vice-chancellor of the University of Seychelles (UniSey), Dr Rolph Payet, to the Townsville campus, where the presidential delegation and the University management discussed the first phases for the development of research and academic programmes between JCU and UniSey.
JCU is ranked first in the world for coral reef research.
The President met two Seychellois marine science PHd students at James Cook University – Karen Chong Seng and Michelle Esparon – praising them for their choice of studies, and expressing the hope that they would bring back their knowledge and experience to their homeland.
Regular and increased sightings of the ocean’s largest fish, the whale shark, in the waters off Mafia Island, Tanzania, have prompted the Mafia Marine Park management to introduce and license dedicated ocean tours to show the fish to tourist visitors. Now over 10 years old, the park has started to attract more visitors year after year, allowing income generated from entrance fees to be plowed back into park infrastructure, which now features two diving facilities.
It was reported that recently nearly 40 whale sharks were sighted and information was also given that while a migratory species, the whales only journey down the East African seaboard to Mozambique and below, and also across the Indian Ocean, when plankton, their main diet, is getting sparse. They do, however, regularly return to the Tanzanian waters, as an apparent satellite tracking project has recently established.
Fed by the Rufiji river, the waters off Mafia Island are said to be rich in plankton, encouraging large concentrations of the whale shark to take up residence, mainly in the months between November and January and again between May and July, when organized whale shark sighting trips are much in demand.
A new national reserve will be created at Anamalay Mantandia in Madagascar's central-east region, an official statement indicated on Friday.
The first workshop meant to discuss about the new protected zone at the Anamalay Mantandia Forest Corridor (NAP-CFAM) has been going on since Tuesday in Moramanga town in the same region.
Some of the issues discussed at the workshop include delimiting boundaries for NAP-CFAM zone as well as identification of the roles that will be played by various stakeholders in the creation of this new national reserve.
The process to put in place NAP-CFAM will involve three phases which will include public discussions that will be followed by the harmonization of all public views and later, presentation of the final recommendations to the government for the signing of the final decree to create the national reserve.
Currently, Madagascar has 18 national parks, five natural reserves and 23 special reserves.
During the 2003 World Congress on Protected Zones that was organized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (UICN) in Durban, Madagascar committed herself to give high priority to protection of biodiversity by increasing the total land surface area of protected zones from 1.7 million hectares to six million hectares.
Africa's mollusc stocks at risk from ocean acidification
Fishermen in Haiti and some African countries could lose their livelihoods as ocean acidification causes a decline in mollusc populations, a study has found.
Human industrial activities release carbon dioxide, which dissolves in sea water, increasing its acidity. This higher acidity damages the mollusc stocks on which many fishermen in Gambia, Haiti, Madagascar, Mozambique and Senegal rely.
"Laboratory studies show that animals that make hard shells and skeletons out of calcium carbonate minerals have a more difficult time doing so when ocean acidification lowers the carbonate concentration in sea water," said Sarah Cooley of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, United States, the study's lead author.
There is a clear link between increasing ocean acidification and decreasing carbonate production for shells in molluscs such as clams, scallops and conches.
"It takes more energy for these animals to create and maintain calcium carbonate structures, so they have less energy for other important life functions like reproduction, growth and metamorphosis," she added.
The study, published in Fish and Fisheries last month (7 July), says that mollusc fisheries will decline most in poor countries that are already struggling with protein deficiencies.
It assessed countries' vulnerability by looking at their reliance on mollusc fisheries, their capacity for aquaculture and their projected population growth. Aquaculture may help control factors such as acidity levels, helping nations to adapt.
It found that, 10-50 years from now, many developing countries will face smaller mollusc harvests, with the five countries mentioned above to be hit the hardest. This leaves a narrow window of opportunity for policymakers to devise strategies that allow fishermen to continue benefiting from mollusc fisheries.
Molluscs are a high-quality source of protein and exporting them generates income for some developing countries, Cooley said. In Madagascar, for instance, fishing provides seven per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and generates nearly half-a-million jobs, according to 2005 data.
But a combination of nutritional, economic and oceanographic factors, such as protein loss, erosion of income, climate change and ocean acidification, makes these nations particularly vulnerable, Cooley said.
In Madagascar, the effects of ocean acidification and climate change are already being experienced, according to Jean Maharavo, acting director of science at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.
"My recent work shows a close correlation between decline in shellfish harvests and environmental decline in the southwestern parts of the island," he told SciDev.Net.
Urgent measures are needed to protect submarine areas and to ensure the sustainability of mollusc stocks, he said, adding that alternatives to mollusc fishing must be found.
Cooley said that, for adaptation to be successful, vulnerable nations must also include pollution, overfishing and climate change in their plans.
Standing among small island states threatened by effects of climate change, the tourist island of Zanzibar has organized a three-day symposium to deliberate the impact of climate change in small island states.
Scheduled from December 12 to 14 this year, the symposium bears the theme of “First International Symposium on Impact and Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Small Island Developing States.”
Organizers of the event, the State University of Zanzibar, said the symposium is aimed to raise national and international awareness on threats of climate change to small island states, which are leading tourist attraction destinations in the world, including the island of Zanzibar.
Climate change scientists had earlier raised their concern over climate changes in Zanzibar and threats to rising water levels of the Indian Ocean, and predicted dangers ahead, among them, a possible sinking of some islands which make the Zanzibar archipelago.
Experts further warned of a possibility to see key beaches of Zanzibar and a big part of this island totally sinking in the Indian Ocean within the coming 100 years.
According to the State University of Zanzibar, key speakers will be drawn from other island states including Samoa and Japan. Other speakers confirmed to attend will come from Tanzania and South Africa.
A number of topics have been drawn for discussion by climate change experts and policymakers. Key topics for discussion are: Climate Change and Biodiversity; Climate Change and Tourism; Climate Change and Ecosystem Services; Climate Change and Agriculture and Food Security; Climate Change, Land Use, and Forestry; and Climate Change and Human Health.
Other topics to be tabled are: Climate Change, Water Supply and Sanitation; Climate Change, Industry, Settlement, and Society; Climate Change and Transportation; Climate Change and Human Behavior; Climate Change and Coral Reefs; and Climate Change and Socio-economy.
Zanzibar is made up of two major islands in the Indian Ocean. Unguja is the main island and Pemba Island in the northern side is the small one, with a series of other, small uninhabited fishing coral islands. The capital of Zanzibar, located on the island of Unguja, is the administrative and commercial town or municipality, boasting of classic tourist beach hotels and resorts.
Zanzibar municipality is mostly made up of old, Arab architecture and is known as Stone Town, also listed as a World Heritage Site under the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Seychelles: Experts start work on finding solutions to shark attacks
This follows two such incidents off Anse Lazio beach on Praslin recently in which two tourists – a Frenchman and an Englishman -- lost their lives.
The two South African experts -- Geremy Cliff and Michael Anderson-Reade, from the Kwa-Zulu Natal Shark Institute -- arrived in Seychelles on Monday morning and later the same day met senior government representatives from the Department of Environment, Seychelles Maritime Safety Authority, Praslin Development Fund and the Police to discuss their work programme over the next 6 days.
According to their Terms of Reference, they will assist the Government of Seychelles in determining and proposing a comprehensive list of prevention and safety measures that the authorities need to apply, the geographical extent and the length of time these will be required to lower the possibility of a shark attack. These should include advisories to swimmers and divers, surveillance systems and rescue respond measures and first aid accessibility.
They will also try to identify the shark species and size from the information available and determine what may have triggered or cause the attacks.
The methods that can be used to abate or remove the particular shark threat will also be considered.
The experts will also identify and list other biological and anthropogenic contributing factors that may need to be considered such as disposal of food from yachts and other pleasure boats in the in-shore that may affect shark feed behaviour and find out how can these be best addressed.
The experts have also done some preliminary assessment of the injuries of the two victims from photos provided by the police and the piece of tooth that has been retrieved from the second victim by doctors.
From the preliminary assessment of the injuries they are inclined to think that the species of shark involved is a Great White although they are not discarding the possibility of a Tiger shark at this stage. Further detail studies will be conducted during the coming days.
Yesterday morning they met local fishermen and in the afternoon had a meeting with local technical experts in an effort to gather as much information as possible about Seychelles’ maritime policies, laws, local marine conditions and climate.
On Mahe, senior government officials met with the representatives of tourism businesses yesterday and briefed them on actions being undertaken.
The ban on swimming in Anse Lazio, Petit Anse Kerlan, Anse Georgette, Curieuse and St Pierre is still on. In other areas, swimmers and divers are being asked to take necessary precautions.
In an effort to increase surveillance, support has been sought from Air Seychelles pilots who regularly overfly the area to keep a look-out for any large fish in the sea and to report any sighting. This is being supported by patrol boats from the Seychelles National Parks, local fishermen and the Coast Guard.
The Government of Seychelles has reiterated that it is against putting a bounty on sharks and the indiscriminate killing of sharks. It has reaffirmed the fact that it will apply internationally accepted best practices to address the problem based on advice from the shark experts.
Seychelles: Management of offshore oil and gas resources
A host of Seychellois officials are receiving training on how to manage offshore oil and gas resources in the event that oil is discovered in our waters.
This is through a three-day workshop being run by the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEMRE), in collaboration with the Seychelles Petroleum Company (Sepec).
The workshop, being held at the Sepec conference room, is aimed at officials involved in petroleum engineering, environment, regulatory formulation, revenue management and legal affairs.
This is the third visit to Seychelles by the US Department of the Interior since last year. It comes at a time when two foreign companies are active in exploring a total area of about 36,000 sq km of our exclusive economic zone. Both companies are committed to drill wells next year.
The opening of the workshop yesterday took place in the presence of the Vice-President and Minister for Finance Danny Faure and finance principal secretary Ahmed Afif.
Sepec chairman Captain Guy Adam said development of the oil and gas sector is notorious of the risks and threats it poses to economic and political stability and the environment. He added that management of the sector is therefore a major challenge for governments and local industry.
Capt Adam said discovery of oil in Seychelles, followed by its exploitation, will bring many challenges, including the need for the institutional framework to manage and regulate this new sector of the economy.
He also noted that managing oil revenues will require well defined legislation to ensure that the country gets fair revenues which are used to achieve equitable and sustainable development for the current generation, while also providing for future generations.
Capt Adam went on to note that exploitation of hydrocarbon resources has the potential to significantly impact existing sectors. It can create negative economic, environmental and social impacts if not managed properly.
“We now have to prepare ourselves in the event of an oil discovery. We need not re-invent the wheel as lessons learnt from other countries offer useful advice and complement ideas derived from theory.
“The experiences of the US in the gas and oil sectors can help us understand the pitfalls and incorporate the lessons learnt in our programmes, to prompt us avoid past mistakes.”
The US has been in the petroleum business even before Col Edwin Blake drilled the first commercial oil well in Pennsylvania in August 1859 -- 152 years ago this Saturday.
“It is pleasing to note that the US government has identified Seychelles as a country that has oil and gas potential and may be part of the world’s next generation of oil and gas producing countries.
Capt Adam also expressed the government’s gratitude for the range of valuable technical support to Seychelles that the US Department of State, through the Energy Governance and Capacity Initiative, is willing to provide.
The workshop will during the three days include detailed discussions on how issues relevant to Seychelles’ oil and gas sectors are handled in the United States.
These include tendering, licencing, geologic and economic modelling, managing transactions and revenue and environmental review and compliance.
Worldwide Map Identifies Important Coral Reefs Exposed to Stress
Marine researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups have created a map of the world's corals and their exposure to stress factors, including high temperatures, ultra-violet radiation, weather systems, sedimentation, as well as stress-reducing factors such as temperature variability and tidal dynamics.
The study, say the authors, will help to conserve some of the world's most important coral reefs by identifying reef systems where biodiversity is high and stress is low, ecosystems where management has the best chance of success.
The paper appears online in journal PLoS One. The authors include: Joseph M. Maina of WCS and a doctoral student at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; Timothy R. McClanahan of WCS; Valentijn Venus of Netherlands Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation; Mebrahtu Ateweberhan of the University of Warwick; and Joshua Madin of Macquarie University.
"Coral reefs around the globe are under pressure from a variety of factors such as higher temperatures, sedimentation, and human-related activities such as fishing and coastal development," said Joseph M. Maina, WCS conservationist and lead author on the study. "The key to effectively identifying where conservation efforts are most likely to succeed is finding reefs where high biodiversity and low stress intersect."
Using a wide array of publicly available data sets from satellites and a branch of mathematics known as fuzzy logic, which can handle incomplete data on coral physiology and coral-environment interactions, the researchers grouped the world's tropical coral reef systems into clusters based on the sum of their stress exposure grades and the factors that reinforce and reduce these stresses.
The first cluster of coral regions -- Southeast Asia, Micronesia, the Eastern Pacific, and the central Indian Ocean -- is characterized by high radiation stress (sea surface temperature, ultra-violet radiation, and doldrums weather patterns with little wind) and few stress-reducing factors (temperature variability and tidal amplitude). The group also includes corals in coastal waters of the Middle East and Western Australia (both regions have high scores for reinforcing stress factors such as sedimentation and phytoplankton).
The second cluster -- including the Caribbean, Great Barrier Reef, Central Pacific, Polynesia, and the Western Indian Ocean -- contained regions with moderate to high rates of exposure as well as high rates of reducing factors, such as large tides and temperature variability.
Overall, stress factors such as surface temperature, ultra-violet radiation, and doldrums were the most significant factors, ones that ecosystem management has no control over. What is controllable is the mitigation of human impacts that reinforce radiation stress and where managers decide to locate their protected areas.
"When radiation stress and high fishing are combined, the reefs have little chance of surviving climate change disturbances because they both work against the survival of corals that are the foundation of the coral reef ecosystem," said Dr. Tim McClanahan, WCS Senior Conservationist and head of the society's coral reef research and conservation program.
The authors recommend that the study results be used to formulate management strategies that would include activities such as fishing restrictions, the management of watersheds through improved agricultural practices, and reforestation of coastal watersheds that play a role in healthy coral systems.
"The study provides marine park and ecosystem managers with a plan for spatially managing the effectiveness of conservation and sustainability," said Dr. Caleb McClennen, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Marine Program. "The information will help formulate more effective strategies to protect corals from climate change and lead to improved management of reef systems globally."
The Macquarie University's Higher Degree Research (HDR) and the Wildlife Conservation Society Marine Program contributed to the mapping project, with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
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