[Brenda, R.N. and infection control specialist and candidate in the Division of Continuing Education at Harvard University, and Lee, M.A. in in Journalism and graduate degree in science from Harvard, “Climate Change: In Context”, http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=GVRL&userGroupName=txshracd267
9&tabID=T003&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=1&contentSet
=GALE%7CCX3079000045&&docId=GALE|CX3079000045&docType=GALE ] BW
Slight changes in climate
can lead to pressure s on biodiversity
by other mechanisms. For example, a 2006 study by J. Alan Pounds and colleagues found that global warming has almost certainly caused the recent extinction of about 67% of the 110 or so species of the
Monteverde harlequin tree frog of the mountains of Costa Rica. The scientists saw the extinctions as validating the climate-linked epidemic hypothesis, according to which shifts in temperature, rainfall, and other climate variables make populations more vulnerable to disease and therefore to extinction. In the case of the Monteverde frogs, more frequent warm years shifted conditions toward the growth optimum of the actrachochytrium fungus, which infects the frogs. The researchers found that extinctions of the frogs consistently followed temperature peaks that were favorable to growth of the fungal disease.
¶
Other effects are not strictly changes in climate,
in the sense of temperature or precipitation
, but chemical changes to air and water. Increased
carbon dioxide
(CO2) in the atmosphere has two major
effects that are likely to decrease biodiversity
: 1)
Heightened atmospheric CO2 causes increased levels of dissolved CO2 in the ocean. When CO2 dissolves in water, it produces a weak acid, carbonic acid. Rising atmospheric CO2 thus acidifies the oceans. 2) Green plants extract carbon from the air by breaking up CO2, constructing their tissues using the carbon, and releasing the oxygen.
CO2 is plant food. Thus, increasing atmospheric CO2 tends to cause more rapid growth in most plant species, an effect called CO2 enrichment.

[Brenda, R.N. and infection control specialist and candidate in the Division of Continuing Education at Harvard University, and Lee, M.A. in in Journalism and graduate degree in science from Harvard, “Climate Change: In Context”, http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=GVRL&userGroupName=txshracd267
9&tabID=T003&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=1&contentSet
=GALE%7CCX3079000045&&docId=GALE|CX3079000045&docType=GALE ] BW
Acidification of the oceans by
dissolved excess
CO2 will impact biodiversity by making survival more difficult for organisms that form shells of calcium carbonate. This includes
bivalves such as clams, mollusks such as
periwinkles and conches, microscopic plankton species, and corals. Corals,
which are
also subject to bleaching in
excessively warm waters, form large, shallow communities in tropical waters that have been compared to rainforests because of their high level of biodiversity. A typical large reef may support on the order of a million species of plants and animals.
[Vincent, Director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, Australia. 8 December, 2010, "Coral reef ecosystems and anthropogenic climate change", http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10113-010-0189-2/fulltext.html, Retrieved:
July 19, 2014")
Many of the key uncertainties within our understanding of how local and global factors will affect coral reef ecosystems lie in the synergies and interactions between factors. At the global level, considerable
evidence is accumulating which suggests that global warming and ocean acidification are likely to interact in a number of ways. Anthony et al. (2008) recently demonstrated that increasing seawater
acidity lowers a coral’s thermal bleaching threshold, with bleaching occurring at lower temperatures in acidified circumstances. This influence of acidification is so strong that corals will bleach when the pH
drops to 7.6, without being exposed to elevated sea temperatures. This further emphasizes the idea that projections of the impacts of rising temperatures on corals are likely to be optimistic (Hoegh-
Guldberg 1999; Done et al. 2003; Donner et al.2005; Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2007). Similar interactions are likely to occur with respect to sea level rise, which may not be a problem as long as corals are healthy and growing vigorously. The combination of rapidly increasing sea temperatures plus slower coral growth, however, introduces the possibility that reefs will be unable to keep pace with the surface of the ocean and run the risk of becoming drowned (Blanchon and Shaw1995; Blanchon et al.
2009).
Similar interactions have been noted between local and global factors. For example, Hughes et al. (2007) found that reducing the number of herbivorous fish on the coral reef reduced the recovery rate of
coral communities from mass coral bleaching by a factor of approximately three. These interactions between global and local factors also indicate a number of adaptive strategies, which arise from the fact that increasing the resilience of coral reefs to global disturbances may be most effectively done by reducing local stresses such as poor water quality and the overexploitation of key functional groups
such as herbivores (Hughes et al. 2003; Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2007). This opportunity is likely to become a major theme within strategies aiming to reduce the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification.

, (Agence French-Presse, global news source, “Declining algae threatens oceans food chain:study, http://www.afp.com/en/agency/afp-history/ , July 30, 2010, Accessed July 19, 2014)
A century-long decline in tiny algae called phytoplankton could disrupt the global ocean food chain, including the human consumption of fish, according to a study released Wednesday. The microscopic organisms - which prop up the pyramid of marine animal life from shrimps to killer whales - have been disappearing globally at a rate of one percent per year, researchers reported. Since 1950, phytoplankon mass has dropped by about 40 percent, most likely due to the accelerating impact of global warming, they reported.
"Phytoplankton is the fuel on which marine ecosystems run," said lead author Daniel Boyce, a professor at
Dalhousie University in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. "
A decline affects everything up the food chain, including humans." The pace of the decline - heavist in polar and tropical regions - matched the rate at which surface ocean temperatures have increased as a result of climate change, the study said. Like all plants, phytoplankton need sunlight and nutrients to grow.
But warmer oceans become more stratified, creating a "dead zone" at the surface in which fewer nutrients are delivered from deeper layers.
The findings are worrying
, the researchers said. "Phytoplankton are a critical part of our planetary support system - they produce half the oxygen we breathe, draw down surface carbon dioxide, and ultimately support all fisheries," said co-author Boris Worm.
(Phys.org is a science, research and technology news website specializing in the hard science subjects of physics, space and earth science, biology, chemistry, "Algae declines in the water off
Sydney." March 10th, 2014. http://phys.org/news/2014-03-algae-declines-sydney.html
, accessed July
19, 2014)
One of the longest time-series of phytoplankton (microalgae) data in the Southern Hemisphere has revealed that phytoplankton are declining in the waters off Sydney. Phytoplankton are microscopic plants whose growth produces almost half of the world's oxygen, and supports the entire marine food chain.
They can also result in blooms, including 'red tides'
. They are closely linked to the climate system due to their sensitivity to ocean circulation and nutrient availability. Global warming may cause changes in phytoplankton abundance and diversity, and as such they are important indicators of climate-change effects on marine ecosystems.
"We know that the coastal waters of southeast Australia have undergone significant climate-related changes over the past 60 years", says Dr Penelope Ajani from Macquarie University. "We wanted to assess the effects of these changes on the phytoplankton". For more than 10 years, Dr Ajani and colleagues have been collecting phytoplankton data from a monitoring station offshore from Sydney. "
We examined 11 years of samples. Our data confirmed the seasonal pattern of peak diversity in winter, and also that phytoplankton blooms occur most consistently in March, September and December. "Unexpectedly, we also observed a significant decline in total phytoplankton numbers over this eleven-year period. This decline in abundance was associated with a decline in water temperature.
" Fellow researcher Dr Andrew Allen said: "What these findings tell us is that, although there has been a long-term increase in water temperature in our coastal waters, shorter-term fluctuations can and do occur. "Such fluctuations significantly affect the phytoplankton , and therefore may have important implications for the entire marine ecosystem". The phytotplankton dataset collected and analysed for this study represents one of the longest time series in the Southern Hemisphere. It therefore represents an important baseline for assessing the effects of future climate change on marine ecosystems .
(Jeff Spross is a reporter and video editor for
ThinkProgress.org.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/26/2999611/plankton-ocean-food-web/ , accessed July 19, 2014)

Springtime blooms of plankton — microscopic sea creatures that are the foundation of most marine ecosystems — are at the lowest levels ever seen off New England. The dramatic decline happened in the North Atlantic in first half of this year, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) told the AP. It also coincided with sea surface temperatures from the mid-
Atlantic to the Gulf of Maine that were the third-warmest on record, after an all-time high in 2012.
Further south in the Atlantic there was more cooling, but overall warming throughout the oceans remains on a steady upward trend. The result is earlier warming events in the oceans over the past few years and NOAA scientists suspect the changes are affecting plant and animal reproduction. “The first six months of 2013 can be characterized by new extremes in the physical and biological environment,” said Kevin Friedland, a marine scientist with NOAA.
Phytoplankton — the most basic form of plankton — are a massive part of the planet’s overall ecosystems: they account for roughly half the organic matter produced on Earth, produce half the oxygen in the atmosphere, draw carbon dioxide out of the air, and serve as the foundational food source for most of the oceans’ food webs. The dropoff in the springtime plankton is also affecting the population levels of larger zooplankton– small marine invertebrates — that feed on the blooms.
Scientists have found that rising ocean temperatures change the interaction of different layers of water. As a result, fewer nutrients circle up from the lower layers to serve as food for the phytoplankton in the upper layers. Researchers suspect this is a big part of a massive 40 percent decline they’ve observed in phytoplankton levels since 1950. In fact, roughly 90 percent of global warming’s total effect goes into heating the oceans. Research also shows that the retreat of arctic ice is leading to earlier phytoplankton blooms in that region of the ocean as well. The spring blooms are coming as much as 50 days earlier than they were a mere decade ago.
That risks the collapse of larger food webs, as the reproductive cycles of many marine animals’ are timed to the blooms.

(Layla,writes in Guardian’s science section, July 12, 2014 http://guardianlv.com/2014/07/lakeerie-pollution-on-the-decline-despite-algae-bloom/#azhAKgQVdJJQ356o.99)
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its forecast on Lake Erie’s summer algae bloom for 2014 this week, and at first glance, the numbers are alarming. NOAA and the
International Joint Commission say that even though pollutants causing the algae bloom in Lake Erie are high, they are
still on the decline from 2011
. Lake Erie is the smallest and shallowest of all five Great Lakes and also has the most river tributaries. Ohio, New York and Ontario,
Canada share its borders, and Lake Erie is seen as a vital economic waterway, a source for drinking water and a valuable sewer treatment. The lake has been plagued by many ecological problems since the late 60s, including the toxic algae blooms, a number of invasive species and high levels of Mercury in its edible fish supply. Unfortunately because of all these problems, Lake Erie has come to be known as an environmental sore spot for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the NOAA. Efforts to clean up the lake’s shores and protect species have thus seemed like an uphill battle at times. Cyanobacteria is a form of blue-green algae which is toxic to plants and animals. Algal blooms have been a problem in Lake Erie since the 60s, with the Lake’s largest bloom numbers occurring between the late
60s and the 80s on the western shore. The Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) are largely caused by pesticides and herbicides in agricultural runoff into Lake Erie’s many tributary rivers.
Many of these chemicals, such as atrazine, acetochlor and cyanazine, contain a type of phosphorous which causes cyanobacteria to thrive when combined with warm summer temperatures.
T his is what makes the algae bloom each summer a pollution issue. Lake Erie is especially vulnerable to algal blooms because of its size, location, topography and large number of tributary rivers. These rivers push phosphorous into Lake Erie’s western basin in a process called “loading” by scientists. NOAA and the Joint
Commission have found that other Great Lakes have had higher concentrations of phosphorous and larger algae blooms than Lake Erie. However because of their larger volume, positions in relation to their tributaries and the direction of their tides, the blooms were more widely dispersed and thus less harmful.

(http://www.science20.com/news/can_marine_phytoplankton_be_the_cure_for_global_warming April
18th 2008 )
Increased carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is causing microscopic ocean plants to produce greater amounts of calcium carbonate (chalk) - with potentially wide ranging implications for predicting the cycling of carbon in the oceans and climate modelling.
That is the conclusion of an international team of scientists led by investigators based at the UK's National Oceanography Centre, Southampton and the University of Oxford, published in Science, on 18 April 2008. Co lead-author, Dr M Debora Iglesias-Rodriguez, of the University of Southampton's
School of Ocean and Earth Science at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton said:
'This work contradicts previous findings and shows, for the first time, that calcification by phytoplankton could double by the end of this century. This is important because the majority of ocean calcification is carried out by coccolithophores such as
Emiliania huxleyi and the amount of calcium carbonate produced at the ocean surface is known to have a direct influence on levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
' Previously, the fact that carbon dioxide made the oceans more acidic was thought to be harmful to all organisms that produce calcium carbonate - for example, corals and coccolithophores (a group of calcium carbonate-producing phytoplankton). However, observations in the laboratory and the deep ocean have shown that the calcification of coccolithophores increases significantly with rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, produced by human activity. When coccolithophores make plates of calcium carbonate they also release carbon dioxide. But because these organisms photosynthesize they also consume CO2. It is the balance between calcification - which produces carbon dioxide - and the consumption of CO2 by photosynthesis that will determine whether coccolithophores act as a "sink" (absorbing CO2) or as a source of CO2 to the atmosphere.
These results, based on experiments that directly replicate how the oceans take up carbon dioxide, show that the rise in CO2 produced by increased calcification is mitigated by its removal through increased photosynthesis, with a net effect that is unlikely to either contribute greatly or significantly reduce the rise in atmospheric CO2
. Co-lead author, PhD student Paul Halloran based at the
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford said: 'Our research has also revealed that, over the past 220 years, coccolithophores have increased the mass of calcium carbonate they each produce by around 40 per cent.
These results are in agreement with previous observations that coccolithophores are abundant through past periods of ocean acidification such as 55 million years ago - the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum. Dr Iglesias-
Rodriguez from the University of Southampton continued: 'Our widely held assumption that the acidification of the oceans causes a decrease in calcification in all coccolithophores needs to be reappraised in the light of our findings. Our data reveal that these microscopic organisms, which are major players in the Earth's cycling of carbon, have been responding to climate change by increasing the size of the cells and their calcium carbonate plates.
'What is unclear from our research is exactly what will be the effect of ocean acidification in natural ecosystems and how the response of calcification in the oceans will affect the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Our next step is to conduct field research, particularly in the most susceptible waters to ocean acidification, such as Antarctic waters
.'
(ScienceDaily.com, American news website for topical science articles, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100528093212.htm March 28 , 2010) JW
Over the last decades, global warming has been accompanied by an increase in the taxonomic biodiversity of phytoplankton and zooplankton in the North Atlantic Ocean and a reduction in the average size of these organisms, according to researchers.
These results have been obtained by a researcher from the
Laboratoire d'Océanologie et de Géosciences (CNRS/Université Lille 1/Université du Littoral-Cote d'Opale, Wimereux) in collaboration with the Sir Alister Hardy
Foundation for Ocean Science (Plymouth) and the Laboratoire d'Océanologie de Villefranche (CNRS/Université Pierre et Marie Curie). Researchers demonstrate that this structural modification of biological systems could bring about an alteration to the carbon sink in the North Atlantic and a reduction in the presence of subarctic fish such as cod. The work has recently been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Observations show that 84% of global warming occurs in oceans. Numerous results already show that marine organisms respond to this rise in temperature. However, few studies have been carried out on the consequences of global climate change on the evolution of marine biodiversity on a large spatial scale.
The Continuous Plankton Recorder program based in Plymouth in the United Kingdom has been monitoring, every month since 1946, the presence and the abundance of nearly 450 species of plankton in the North Atlantic Ocean. The team, headed by Grégory Beaugrand of the Laboratoire d'Océanologie et de Géosciences (CNRS/Université Lille
1/Université du Littoral-Côte d'Opale, Wimereux), has analyzed the 97 million items of data stemming from this program.
The researchers focused on the taxonomic diversity of key groups of phytoplankton, such as dinoflagellates and diatoms, and zooplankton, particularly copepods that ensure the transfer between primary producers
(phytoplankton) and upper trophic levels. Their analysis has evidenced for the first time that the rise

in temperatures has been accompanied by an increase in the biodiversity of these plankton groups in the North Atlantic Ocean and by a 25 to 33% reduction in the average size of copepods, of which one hundred or so species live in this part of the ocean. The size of these organisms has in fact decreased from 3-4 mm to 2-3 mm on average in a number of regions situated between the temperate and polar systems. The researchers then focused on the consequences of this surprising evolution. They demonstrated that the decrease in the mean size of copepods, which ensure the transfer of atmospheric carbon dioxide from the surface to the bottom of the oceans through the food chain, could lead to a reduction, not yet quantifiable, in the amount of atmospheric carbon trapped by the
North Atlantic Ocean, which accounts for one quarter of the total atmospheric carbon trapped by the world's oceans. Such weakening of the carbon sink in the North Atlantic Ocean, added to that predicted by biogeochemical models, namely that the rise in temperatures will increase thermal stratification of the water column, will make it more difficult for nutritive salts to reach the surface
from the deeper layers, eventually causing marine productivity to decline.

(July 15, 2013 http://winderlab.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/ocean-acidificationstudy-shows-high-resilience-of-a-coastal-plankton-community/
According to Nielsen et al. (2012), "the atmospheric CO2 concentration is rising, and models predict that by the end of the century it will have increased to twice the amount seen at any given time during the last 15 million years," and that "this will cause a decrease in average surface water pH of 0.4," noting that planktonic protists will be among the organisms to be affected first by this change." In an effort to further explore this important subject, Nielsen et al. "tested whether reduced pH would affect plankton communities over an incubation period of 14 days." This was done, as they describe it, "in a laboratory microcosm setup using a natural plankton community from the Derwent River estuary,
Australia," wherein "two treatments with reduced pH (8.0 and 7.7) were compared to an unaltered control of pH 8.3," during which exercise "measured parameters included community photosynthesis, nutrient uptake and biomass build-up, as well as enumeration of 25 protist taxa and quantitative HPLC of phytoplankton pigments." Results of the analysis indicated that nutrient uptake and photosynthetic parameters "were all unaffected by pH treatments 8.3-7.7," treatments that they say "match the predicted 21st century changes in CO2 and pH." In addition, they found that "cellular carbon and total
particulate organic carbon were both completely unaffected by pH treatment within this range," and that "the same was true for the succession of all 25 enumerated protist species." In addition, they report that "phytoplankton pigment analysis did not show effects of pH either," and they say that "the
investigated plankton community was thus, in all ways, resilient to pH changes between 8.3 and 7.7," noting once again that these changes are equivalent to the predicted changes for the next century. In discussing their findings, Nielsen et al. write that "others have also found no or very limited changes in phytoplankton communities in response to 21st century predicted changes in pH and CO2," citing Kim et al. (2006), Riebesell et al. (2007) and Suffrian et al. (2008); and they also note, in this regard, that "many coastal plankton communities are impervious to such changes," additionally citing the work of Nielson et al. (2010). One potential reason for this "broad level of pH-tolerance," as they describe it, is that "pH in coastal waters often fluctuates as a result of respiratory and photosynthetic processes," as well as
"hydrographical events," with the result that "seasonal, and even diurnal, fluctuations in coastal seawater pH have been shown to encompass 7.5 to 9.6 (Macedo et al., 2001; Hansen, 2002)." And thus they conclude that "it is unlikely that the investigated plankton community would be significantly affected by a pH and CO2 change as predicted for the 21st century."
(National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, ‘No, not all algae blooms are harmful”, http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/habharm.html
, Jan 23, 2013, accessed July 19, 2014)
Less than one percent of algal blooms actually produce toxins
. Harmful algal blooms are blooms of species of algae that can have negative impacts on humans, marine and freshwater environments, and coastal economies. These blooms occur when phytoplankton, which are tiny microscopic plants, grow quickly in large quantities while producing toxic or harmful effects on people, fish, shellfish, marine mammals, and birds.
A bloom does not have to produce toxins in order to be harmful to the environment.
It can also be harmful by causing anoxic conditions where oxygen is depleted from the water. Blooms can block light to organisms lower in the water column, or even clog or harm fish gills.
Not all algal blooms are harmful, some can actually be beneficial. Phytoplankton are found at the base of the marine food chain therefore all other life in

the ocean relies on phytoplankton. Blooms can also be a good indicator of environmental change not only in the water, but also on land.

Schenkman 15 March 2010 (Lauren, staff writer at Science Mag, 15 March, “Carbon-Capture Method
Could Poison Oceans”, http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2010/03/carbon-capture-methodcould-poison-oceans ) JW
To help cool a warming world, some scientists have suggested fertilizing the oceans with iron.
The idea is to stimulate vast blooms of phytoplankton, which sequester carbon dioxide. But such an approach could have deadly consequences. Experiments in the northern Pacific Ocean show that phytoplankton in waters far from land produce a molecule called domoic acid, a neurotoxin that has killed wildlife and people in coastal areas.
About 20% of Earth's oceans are strangely bare of greenery. Despite abundant nitrogen and phosphorous, these areas—known as high-nutrient, low chlorophyll zones—have very small populations of phytoplankton, single-celled algae that photosynthesize. That's because phytoplankton also need iron, and these zones tend to be too far from the river deltas and land runoff that supply it. So-called geoengineers have proposed sprinkling these regions with iron to foster phytoplankton blooms big enough to consume vast amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and thus cool the globe. But too many phytoplankton can be a bad thing
, especially when it comes to members of the genus Pseudonitzschia. This alga produces domoic acid
, which it spews into the surrounding seawater to help it ingest iron. Domoic acid also happens to be a potent neurotoxin that travels up the food chain into shellfish and small fish. In 1987, three people died and 107 fell ill from amnesic shellfish poisoning after eating mussels that fed on Pseudonitzschia blooms
off Prince Edward Island in Canada. The poison has also killed sea lions off the coast of California, and coastal regions such as Seattle, Washington, and
Vancouver, Canada, often close beaches and fisheries because of Pseudonitzschia blooms. Still, researchers haven't found domoic acid in phytoplankton-poor zones seeded with iron, suggesting that geoengineering efforts would be safe. But that may be because phytoplankton samples in these experiments were preserved and tested on shore, which may have affected their production of domoic acid, says Charles Trick, an oceanographer at the University of Western Ontario in London. So in the new study, Trick and colleagues tested seawater in the open ocean west of British Columbia. They detected small amounts of domoic acids—about 30 trillionths of a gram per liter—in the samples. After they added iron, the phytoplankton quintupled, and domoic acid concentrations within the algae doubled.
Concentrations of domoic acid in the water also increased. Seeding a batch with both iron and copper, which is often found in low-grade iron, amplified the effects, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The implications could be serious for any would-be phytoplankton farmers,
Trick says. When given an iron boost, the domoic acid concentrations were in the range of concentrations seen in toxic coastal blooms, meaning they could be deadly to wildlife. Trick speculates that humans wouldn't have the chance to eat contaminated organisms from these regions, but the toxin could travel up the food chain into crabs and small fish and even higher into sea mammals and birds. Further studies are needed to determine just what the effects would be, he says. "
It's a warning that we don't know very much about how nature will really respond.
" "They've done a very thorough job," says Philip Boyd, an oceanographer at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, who has run two large-scale fertilization experiments in the sub-arctic
Pacific and the Antarctic oceans. On top of pointing out potential risks of iron, Boyd says, the results challenge the notion that iron fertilization strategies would be cheap, as they would require expensive, analytical-grade iron rather than low-grade copper-containing iron. "
One of the attractions of iron, and the way they sell it to venture capitalists, is that it can do it quite cheaply—for the carbon you sequester, it's not going to cost that many dollars,
" Boyd says. "
But there may be hidden costs, and this may be one of them
."

(professor of environmental studies at UNCW, “The Most Important Organism?”
September 12, 2011, http://www.ecology.com/2011/09/12/important-organism/, accessed July 19,
2014)
Not only do algae provide much of the Earth's oxygen, they are also the base for almost all marine life.
Green algae get their color from chlorophyll and exist on or near the surface where there is plenty of sunlight. Green algae are not as common in the ocean as brown and red seaweed. It is also more closely related to land plants than any other type of algae
. It is estimated that marine plants produce between 70 and 80 percent of the oxygen in the atmosphere. Nearly all marine plants are single celled,photosynthetic algae.
Yup, that’s right, good ol’ scum on the pond…green gak…..slip slimein’ away. Even marine seaweed is many times colonial algae. They are a bunch of single cells trying to look like a big plant (see seaweed photo), but they are really individuals.
We need marine algae a whole lot more than they need us.
Think about it, 70 percent to 80 percent of all the oxygen we breathe comes from algae! Without them we would really be sucking wind, but not for long! At this point
, you may be saying,
“Yo! What about the trees and other land plants?” Trees and other land plants are very important, no doubt about it. But for pure survival, we couldn’t make it without algae. Why does so much of our oxygen come from algae? First of all, remember that the oceans cover about 71 percent of this planet and land is only about 29 percent. If we assume that every square mile of the ocean produces as much oxygen as every square mile of land, then this makes sense. The oceans would produce about 71 percent and the land 29 percent of the oxygen we breathe
. Looks like we are in the ballpark, don’t you think? Are Oceans as Productive as
Land? Now the question is, “Are the oceans, indeed, as productive as the land?” At first you might not think so, after all when you look at the land there are trees, bushes and grass and all kinds of plants growing. They must crank out oxygen to beat the band! They do, but also remember that there are many places on land that don’t have much in the way of plants. How about
Antarctica or the Sahara Desert along with many others? These are good-sized chunks of real estate where plants are rare. How much oxygen is being pumped out in these areas? Some areas on land have an abundance of plants and produce a large quantity of oxygen, while others have very few plants and produce very little. The same can be said for the oceans. There are some areas that have an abundance of algae living in the waters and other areas that don’t. In the ocean, there are areas of upwelling where cold, nutrient rich bottom water moves toward the surface. These upwelling waters mix with the surface water and produce an area that is like liquid fertilizer for plants. They go ballistic and there are billions of the little critters in the water just pumping out oxygen left and right. Other areas of the oceans don’t have much in the way of nutrients in the water and they are like the deserts on land with very few plants. Kelp is a type of marine algae, or seaweed. Seaweeds come in three different color varieties, red, green and brown. Kelp is a kind of brown seaweed that grows to be very large. Although kelp resembles a kind of weed or tree, it is quite different from plants that grow on land. Overall, the production of oxygen in the oceans is at least equal to the production on land, if not a bit more. Plants on land are easy to spot. Plants in the ocean are a bit more difficult to see since they are single cells floating in the water. Even though you may not see them, they are there. Remember, these little cells go down to over 300 feet below the surface so they have lots of room to spread out. Plants on land and in the ocean are extremely important to us and we wouldn’t be here without them. Land plants provide us (and other critters) with food, raw materials like wood and fiber to make cloth and paper. They protect the land from erosion with their roots, provide beauty and shade on a hot day and produce oxygen as an added bonus although we could probably survive with the oxygen. Marine plants are also used as food, but we tend to forget about them because they are so small and difficult to see. But remember, the next time you wake up in the morning, stretch and open wide with that big morning yawn, that breath of fresh air you are getting is due for the most part to our friend, the algae. If we kill them by polluting the oceans, we are also killing our vital lifeline.
(“Phytoplankton and Algal Blooms Identification”, https://www.marine.ie/home/services/operational/phytoplankton/Phytoplanktonand+blooms.htm)
Phytoplankton monitoring programme is essential to monitor both harmful species and also to study trends in water quality.
Phytoplankton are possibly the most important group of organisms on the planet as they generate most of the oxygen that we breath. Also, as they convert inorganic nutrients and sunlight into vegetative matter, most marine food chains depend on their presence as a primary food source.
A small proportion of species produce highly potent toxins and the monitoring of these are very important to ensure food safety. noctiluca Scintillans
Some interesting facts about this group: They generally photosynthesise to survive – although some eat other species. They can exist in solitary form but some form chains or spherical shaped colonies.
They generate most of the planet's oxygen. They are of enormous importance in the aquatic food chain. They have been responsible for producing the reserves of hydrocarbon fuels beneath the sea.
Algal Blooms Photo of Offshore Redtide South East IrelandMost individual phytoplankton are too small to be seen with the naked eye. When present in high numbers however, their presence may appear as dramatic discoloration of the water such as the aerial photos taken by the Irish Air Corps in the Southeast Irish Sea shown on this page. This population growth can be rapid, and typically occur when temperature and nutrient levels rise, usually in late Spring and Autumn. It is commonly known as an “algal bloom”. The colour of a bloom can vary from a green to a dark red colour depending on the phytoplankton present. While blooms can provide more food to organisms higher up the food chain, too much phytoplankton can also do harm. Dissolved oxygen becomes rapidly

depleted as the phytoplankton die, sink to the bottom and decompose. This can result in the death of other organisms including shellfish, crabs and fish.

(http://www.newsciencefacts.com/MarinePhytoplankton.html
Marine Phytoplankton makes life possible on our planet. It is the base of the food chain and it is responsible for the production, through photosynthesis, of 90% of the Earth’s oxygen. It cleanses and maintains the atmosphere upon which all animal and plant life depend. In other ways Maine
Phytoplankton sustains and propagates life on planet Earth. Marine Phytoplankton existed long
before humans inhabited the Earth and continues to be the foundation for the entire food chain.
Having said that, it makes sense that its nutritional analysis is impressive. Many experts consider Marine
Phytoplankton to be “the perfect super-food”. Marine phytoplankton’s nutrition is so complete it can
sustain life and facilitate regeneration while providing energy to every cell in our body. Blue whales travels hundreds of miles without rest, consuming up to 1.5 million calories per day in order to meet their enormous energetic requirements. They can achieve this by consuming Marine Phytoplankton.
How: Because it has perfect nutritional balance.

(Environmental Protection Agency, “HABs”, http://www.epa.gov/gmpo/habpage.html)
A harmful algal bloom (HAB), also known as a red tide, is the proliferation of toxic nuisance algae that cause a negative impact to natural resources or humans.
Currently 85 toxic microalgal species have been documented; of these, 37 live in Gulf of Mexico waters. Because they have chlorophyll and are capable of photosynthesis, most of the algal bloom species can be classified as plant-like. They require light, nutrients and carbon dioxide to produce their own food using chlorophyll. There are a few species that do not have their own chlorophyll and thus cannot photosynthesize. These obligate or facultative heterotrophs are called protists, not microalgae.
Recently, there has been a noticeable increase in problems associated with HAB's. Impacts of these natural phenomena include human illness (or death) from contaminated seafood, marine mammal and seabird deaths and extensive fish kills.

Over ≥13 years, both BioCON and BioDIV showed increasingly positive and nonsaturating relationships between biomass and species richness. These findings suggest that shorter-term studies could be misleading by incorrectly indicating functional redundancy and therefore undervaluing biodiversity. In
BioCON and BioDIV, the relationship of biomass to species richness became stronger and less asymptotic as a result of increasing complementarity among species (for example, via increasing functional trait diversity) and increasingly positive impacts of diversity on soil N availability and plant N pools and tissue percent-N. Our long-term results show that changes in diversity at high levels of richness have much larger effects than those shown by short-term studies. Thus, diversity matters for productivity not just in species-depauperate contexts (as in comparing monocultures to two- or fourspecies mixtures), but also, and increasingly over time, at high plant species richness. Hence, because of reduced cumulative feedback and complementarity effects, even the loss of a few species from mature diverse communities could lead in the long term to decreases in biomass production and the sustainability of ecosystem functioning.
Since 1990, more than 600 experiments have manipulated the diversity of plants, animals, fungi,
protozoa, and bacteria in a variety of Earth's biomes. These studies have shown that ecosystem functions like nutrient cycling and biomass production are positively related to biodiversity, but that relationships saturate at relatively low levels of diversity (A). Reich et al. have reanalyzed results from two long-term studies of grassland plants and found that although saturating functions are prominent early in the studies, diversity-function relationships ultimately become monotonically increasing given enough time (B). Short-term experiments may thus underestimate the number of species needed to maintain ecosystem-level processes. If the results prove to be general, Reich et al. will have quantified
how the ecological impacts of extinction scale through time (A to B). If others can similarly quantify how diversity-function relationships change with the spatial extent of studies (A to C), we would have scaling relationships to estimate the fraction of species needed to maintain ecological processes in more realistic ecosystems (D).

th
There is considerably more to be learned by applying new methods that appropriately adjust for the different kinds of data and timescales inherent in the fossil records versus modern records. Future work needs to: (1) standardize rate comparisons to adjust for rate measurements over widely disparate timescales; (2) standardize magnitude comparisons by using the same species (or other taxonomic rank) concepts for modern and fossil organisms; (3) standardize taxonomic and geographic comparisons by using modern and fossil taxa that have equal fossilization potential; (4) assess the extinction risk of modern taxa such as bivalves and gastropods that are extremely common in the fossil record but are at present poorly assessed; (5) set current extinction observations in the context of long-term clade, species-richness, and population dynamics using the fossil record and phylogenetic techniques; (6) further explore the relationship between extinction selectivity and extinction intensity; and (7) develop and test models that posit general conditions required for mass extinction, and how those compare with the current state of the Earth.
¶
Our examination of existing data in these contexts raises two important points. First, the recent loss of species is dramatic and serious but does not yet qualify as a mass extinction in the palaeontological sense of the Big Five.
In historic times we have actually lost only a few per cent of assessed species (though we have no way of knowing how many species we have lost that had never been described
). It is encouraging that there is still much of the world's biodiversity left to save, but daunting that doing so will require the reversal of many dire and escalating threats (7,20,61-63).
¶
The second point is particularly important.
Even taking into account the difficulties of comparing the fossil and modern records, and applying conservative comparative methods that favour minimizing the differences between fossil and modern extinction metrics, there are clear indications that losing species now in the 'critically endangered' category would propel the world to a state of mass extinction that has previously been seen only five times in about 540 million years.
Additional losses of species in the 'endangered' and 'vulnerable' categories could accomplish the sixth mass extinction in just a few centuries. It may be of particular concern that this extinction trajectory would play out under conditions that resemble the 'perfect storm' that coincided with past mass extinctions: multiple, atypical high-intensity ecological stressors, including rapid, unusual climate change and highly elevated atmospheric C[O.sub.2].
The huge difference between where we are now, and where we could easily be within a few generations, reveals the urgency of relieving the pressures that are pushing today's species towards extinction.
The significance of biodiversity for human wellbeing was recognized 20 years ago with the formation of the Convention on Biological Diversity-an intergovernmental agreement among 193 countries to support the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits. Despite this agreement, evidence gathered in 2010 indicated that biodiversity loss at the global scale was continuing, often at increasing rates
(98
). This observation stimulated a set of new targets for 2020
(the Aichi targets) and, in parallel, governments have been negotiating the establishment of a new assessment body, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy
Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
(IPBES). The IPBES will be charged with conducting regional, global and thematic assessments of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and will depend on the international scientific community to assess trends and evaluate risks associated with alternative patterns of development and changes in land use (99).
¶
Significant gaps in both the science and policy need attention if the Aichi targets are to be met, and if future ecosystems are to

provide the range of services required to support more people sustainably
(99). We have reported the scientific consensus that has emerged over 20 years of biodiversity research, to help orient the next generation of research on the links between biodiversity and
the benefits ecosystems provide to humanity
.
One of the greatest challenges now is to use what we have learned to develop predictive models that are founded on empirically quantified ecological mechanisms; that forecast changes in ecosystem services at scales that are policy-relevant; and that link to social, economic and political
systems. Without an understanding of the fundamental ecological processes that link biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services, attempts to forecast the societal consequences of diversity loss, and to meet policy objectives, are likely to fail (100). But with that fundamental understanding in hand, we may yet bring the modern era of biodiversity loss to a safe end for humanity.

[Brenda, R.N. and infection control specialist and candidate in the Division of Continuing Education at Harvard University, and Lee, M.A. in in Journalism and graduate degree in science from Harvard, “Climate Change: In Context”, http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=GVRL&userGroupName=txshracd267
9&tabID=T003&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=1&contentSet
=GALE%7CCX3079000045&&docId=GALE|CX3079000045&docType=GALE ] BW
The five main drivers of biodiversity change, ranked from most severe impact to least severe between now and 2100, are: 1) land-use changes (including deforestation);2) climate change; 3) nitrogen deposition (from fertilizer use); 4) biotic exchange (the introduction of invasive species); and 5) direct effects of increasing atmospheric CO2, apart from climate change.¶ The result of these combined, continuing, and growing pressures will be an irreversible loss of biodiversity in many parts of the
world. However, many uncertainties remain. Ecologists do not understand the relationship between ecosystem structure and rapid climate change well enough to predict the exact effects of current climate changes on biomes. It is also unknown whether efforts to mitigate climate change will occur or succeed, and if so, to what extent.
¶
Despite these uncertainties, scientists have estimated the likely impact that climate change will have on biodiversity. In 2004, Chris Thomas and colleagues published their study of an unbiased or representative sample of 1,103 animal and plant species. They found that climate change was likely to commit 15–37% of all species examined to extinction by 2050.
“Committed to extinction” does not mean that a species would necessarily be extinct by that time, but that the population of each species would be so reduced that its species' extinction becomes
highly likely. In many or most ecological regions, climate change will become the greatest threat to biodiversity by 2050. There are 5 to 15 million species of creatures on Earth (the large range arises from the difficulty of counting insect, bacterial, and fungal species). If only 15% of all species are committed to extinction by climate change—the lower end of the range given by Thomas and colleagues—then
750,000 to 2,250,000 million species will eventually become extinct as a result of global climate change.
[10-26-10, Phys.org, “Continuing biodiversity loss predicted but could be slowed” http://phys.org/news/2010-10-biodiversity-loss.html#nRlv, accessed, 7-01-13 AMS]
A new analysis of several major global studies of future species shifts and losses foresees inevitable
continuing decline of biodiversity during the 21st century but offers new hope that it could be slowed if emerging policy choices are pursued.
Led by experts Henrique Miguel Pereira and Paul Leadley, the 23-member scientific team from nine countries, under the auspices of DIVERSITAS, UNEP-WCMC and the secretariat of the CBD compared results from five recent global environmental assessments and a wide range of peer-reviewed literature examining likely future changes in biodiversity.
Published today in the journal Science, the analysis found universal agreement across the studies that
fundamental changes are needed in society to avoid high risk of extinctions, declining populations in
many species, and large scale shifts in species distributions in the future.
Says Dr. Leadley, of the University Paris-Sud, France: "There is no question that business-as-usual
development pathways will lead to catastrophic biodiversity loss. Even optimistic scenarios for this
century consistently predict extinctions and shrinking populations of many species."

[Brenda, R.N. and infection control specialist and candidate in the Division of Continuing Education at Harvard University, and Lee, M.A. in in Journalism and graduate degree in science from Harvard, “Climate Change: In Context”, http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=GVRL&userGroupName=txshracd267
9&tabID=T003&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=1&contentSet
=GALE%7CCX3079000045&&docId=GALE|CX3079000045&docType=GALE ] BW
As warming continues, other forms of human pressure on biodiversity will continue and will be, in
most cases, amplified by the effects of climate change. Although effects may vary from region to region, the overall effect of global warming is to cause the cooler zones of the world—the regions
around the poles (especially the North Pole) and on mountains—to shrink. Shrinkage of habitat puts species at risk because smaller habitats support smaller populations, and smaller populations are always at higher risk of extinction.

– senior research fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of
Maryland at College Park (Mark, William and Mary Law Review. INSTITUTE OF BILL OF RIGHTS LAW
SYMPOSIUM DEFINING TAKINGS: PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE FUTURE OF GOVERNMENT REGULATION:
MUDDLE OR MUDDLE THROUGH? TAKINGS JURISPRUDENCE MEETS THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT.” 38
Wm and Mary L. Rev. 825)
Although one may agree with ecologists such as Ehrlich and Raven that the earth stands on the brink of an episode of massive extinction, it may not follow from this grim fact that human beings will suffer as a result. On the contrary, skeptics such as science writer Colin Tudge have challenged biologists to explain why we need more than a tenth of the 10 to 100 million species that grace the earth. Noting that "cultivated systems often out-produce wild systems by 100-fold or more," Tudge declared that
"the argument that humans need the variety of other species is, when you think about it, a theological
one." n343 Tudge observed that "the elimination of all but a tiny minority of our fellow creatures does
not affect the material well-being of humans one iota." n344 This skeptic challenged ecologists to list more than 10,000 species (other than unthreatened microbes) that are essential to ecosystem productivity or functioning. n345 "The human species could survive just as well if 99.9% of our fellow
creatures went extinct, provided only that we retained the appropriate 0.1% that we need." n346
[*906] The monumental Global Biodiversity Assessment ("the Assessment") identified two positions with respect to redundancy of species. "At one extreme is the idea that each species is unique and important, such that its removal or loss will have demonstrable consequences to the functioning of the community or ecosystem." n347 The authors of the Assessment, a panel of eminent ecologists, endorsed this position, saying it is "unlikely that there is much, if any, ecological redundancy in communities over time scales of decades to centuries, the time period over which environmental policy should operate." n348 These eminent ecologists rejected the opposing view, "the notion that species overlap in function to a sufficient degree that removal or loss of a species will be compensated by others, with negligible overall consequences to the community or ecosystem." n349 Other biologists
believe, however, that species are so fabulously redundant in the ecological functions they perform that the life-support systems and processes of the planet and ecological processes in general will function perfectly well with fewer of them, certainly fewer than the millions and millions we can
expect to remain even if every threatened organism becomes extinct. n350 Even the kind of sparse and miserable world depicted in the movie Blade Runner could provide a "sustainable" context for the
human economy as long as people forgot their aesthetic and moral commitment to the glory and beauty of the natural world. n351 The Assessment makes this point. "Although any ecosystem contains hundreds to thousands of species interacting among themselves and their physical environment, the emerging consensus is that the system is driven by a small number of . . . biotic variables on whose interactions the balance of species are, in a sense, carried along." n352 [*907] To make up your mind on the question of the functional redundancy of species, consider an endangered species of bird, plant, or insect and ask how the ecosystem would fare in its absence. The fact that the creature is endangered suggests an answer: it is already in limbo as far as ecosystem processes are concerned. What crucial ecological services does the black-capped vireo, for example, serve? Are any of the species threatened with extinction necessary to the provision of any ecosystem service on which humans depend? If so, which ones are they? Ecosystems and the species that compose them have changed, dramatically, continually, and totally in virtually every part of the United States. There is little ecological similarity, for example, between New England today and the land where the Pilgrims died. n353 In view of the

constant reconfiguration of the biota, one may wonder why Americans have not suffered more as a
result of ecological catastrophes. The cast of species in nearly every environment changes constantlylocal extinction is commonplace in nature-but the crops still grow. Somehow, it seems, property values keep going up on Martha's Vineyard in spite of the tragic disappearance of the heath hen. One might argue that the sheer number and variety of creatures available to any ecosystem buffers that system
against stress. Accordingly, we should be concerned if the "library" of creatures ready, willing, and able to colonize ecosystems gets too small. (Advances in genetic engineering may well permit us to write a large number of additions to that "library.") In the United States as in many other parts of the world, however, the number of species has been increasing dramatically , not decreasing, as a result of human activity. This is because the hordes of exotic species coming into ecosystems in the United
States far exceed the number of species that are becoming extinct. Indeed, introductions may outnumber extinctions by more than ten to one, so that the United States is becoming more and more species-rich all the time largely as a result of human action. n354 [*908] Peter Vitousek and colleagues estimate that over 1000 non-native plants grow in California alone; in Hawaii there are 861; in Florida,
1210. n355 In Florida more than 1000 non-native insects, 23 species of mammals, and about 11 exotic birds have established themselves. n356 Anyone who waters a lawn or hoes a garden knows how many weeds desire to grow there, how many birds and bugs visit the yard, and how many fungi, creepycrawlies, and other odd life forms show forth when it rains. All belong to nature, from wherever they might hail, but not many homeowners would claim that there are too few of them. Now, not all exotic species provide ecosystem services; indeed, some may be disruptive or have no instrumental value. n357 This also may be true, of course, of native species as well, especially because all exotics are native somewhere. Certain exotic species, however, such as Kentucky blue grass, establish an area's sense of identity and place; others, such as the green crabs showing up around Martha's Vineyard, are nuisances. n358 Consider an analogy [*909] with human migration. Everyone knows that after a generation or two, immigrants to this country are hard to distinguish from everyone else. The vast majority of
Americans did not evolve here, as it were, from hominids; most of us "came over" at one time or another. This is true of many of our fellow species as well, and they may fit in here just as well as we do.
It is possible to distinguish exotic species from native ones for a period of time, just as we can distinguish immigrants from native-born Americans, but as the centuries roll by, species, like people, fit into the landscape or the society, changing and often enriching it. Shall we have a rule that a species had to come over on the Mayflower, as so many did, to count as "truly" American? Plainly not. When, then, is the cutoff date? Insofar as we are concerned with the absolute numbers of "rivets" holding ecosystems together, extinction seems not to pose a general problem because a far greater number of kinds of mammals, insects, fish, plants, and other creatures thrive on land and in water in America today than in prelapsarian times. n359 The Ecological Society of America has urged managers to maintain biological diversity as a critical component in strengthening ecosystems against disturbance. n360 Yet as Simon
Levin observed, "much of the detail about species composition will be irrelevant in terms of influences on ecosystem properties." n361 [*910] He added: "For net primary productivity, as is likely to be the case for any system property, biodiversity matters only up to a point; above a certain level, increasing
biodiversity is likely to make little difference." n362 What about the use of plants and animals in agriculture? There is no scarcity foreseeable. "Of an estimated 80,000 types of plants [we] know to be
edible," a U.S. Department of the Interior document says, "only about 150 are extensively cultivated." n363 About twenty species, not one of which is endangered, provide ninety percent of the food the world takes from plants. n364 Any new food has to take "shelf space" or "market share" from one that is now produced. Corporations also find it difficult to create demand for a new product; for example, people are not inclined to eat paw-paws, even though they are delicious. It is hard enough to get people to eat their broccoli and lima beans. It is harder still to develop consumer demand for new foods. This

may be the reason the Kraft Corporation does not prospect in remote places for rare and unusual plants and animals to add to the world's diet. Of the roughly 235,000 flowering plants and 325,000 nonflowering plants (including mosses, lichens, and seaweeds) available, farmers ignore virtually all of them in favor of a very few that are profitable. n365 To be sure, any of the more than 600,000 species of plants could have an application in agriculture, but would they be preferable to the species that are now dominant? Has anyone found any consumer demand for any of these half-million or more plants to replace rice or wheat in the human diet? There are reasons that farmers cultivate rice, wheat, and corn rather than, say, Furbish's lousewort. There are many kinds of louseworts, so named because these weeds were thought to cause lice in sheep. How many does agriculture really require? [*911] The species on which agriculture relies are domesticated, not naturally occurring; they are developed by artificial not natural selection; they might not be able to survive in the wild. n366 This argument is not intended to deny the religious, aesthetic, cultural, and moral reasons that command us to respect and protect the natural world. These spiritual and ethical values should evoke action, of course, but we should also recognize that they are spiritual and ethical values. We should recognize that ecosystems and all that dwell therein compel our moral respect, our aesthetic appreciation, and our spiritual veneration; we should clearly seek to achieve the goals of the ESA. There is no reason to assume, however, that these goals have anything to do with human well-being or welfare as economists understand that term. These are ethical goals, in other words, not economic ones. Protecting the marsh may be the right thing to do for moral, cultural, and spiritual reasons. We should do it-but someone will have to pay the costs. In the narrow sense of promoting human welfare, protecting nature often represents a net "cost," not a net "benefit." It is largely for moral, not economic, reasons-ethical, not prudential, reasons- that we care about all our fellow creatures. They are valuable as objects of love not as objects of use. What is good for [*912] the marsh may be good in itself even if it is not, in the economic sense, good for mankind. The most valuable things are quite useless.
“Experts say that Fears Surrounding Climate Change are overblown”, 6 November 2009, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6905082.ece, [Zheng]
Alarming predictions that climate change will lead to the extinction of hundreds of species may be
exaggerated, according to Oxford scientists. They say that many biodiversity forecasts have not taken into account the complexities of the landscape and frequently underestimate the ability of plants and
animals to adapt to changes in their environment. “The evidence of climate change-driven extinctions
have really been overplayed,” said Professor Kathy Willis, a long-term ecologist at the University of
Oxford and lead author of the article. Professor Willis warned that alarmist reports were leading to ill-
founded biodiversity policies in government and some major conservation groups. She said that climate change has become a “buzz word” that is taking priority while, in practice, changes in human use of land have a greater impact on the survival of species. “I’m certainly not a climate change denier, far from it, but we have to have sound policies for managing our ecosystems,” she said. The International
Union for the Conservation of Nature backed the article, saying that climate change is “far from the number-one threat” to the survival of most species. “There are so many other immediate threats that, by the time climate change really kicks in, many species will not exist anymore,” said Jean Christophe
Vie, deputy head of the IUCN species program, which is responsible for compiling the international
Redlist of endangered species. He listed hunting, overfishing, and destruction of habitat by humans as more critical for the majority of species. However, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds disagreed, saying that climate change was the single biggest threat to biodiversity on the planet.
“There’s an absolutely undeniable affect that’s happening now,” said John Clare, an RSPB spokesman.
“There have been huge declines in British sea birds.” The article, published today in the journal Science,

reviews recent research on climate change and biodiversity, arguing that many simulations are not sufficiently detailed to give accurate predictions. In particular, the landscape is often described at very low resolution, not taking into account finer variations in vegetation and altitude that are vital
predictors for biodiversity. In one analysis of the likelihood of survival of alpine plant species in the
Swiss Alps, the landscape was depicted with a 16km by 16km (10 miles by 10 miles) grid scale. This model predicted that all suitable habitats for alpine plants would have disappeared by the end of the century. When the simulation was repeated with a 25m by 25m (82ft by 82ft) scale, the model predicted that areas of suitable habitat would remain for all plant species. The article suggests that migration to new regions and changes in living patterns of species would take place but that actual extinction would be rare. Other studies comparing predictions of extinction rates with actual extinction rates have come to similar conclusions. According to a high-profile paper published in the journal Nature in
2004, up to 35 per cent of bird species would be extinct by 2050 due to changes in climate. To be on track to meet this figure, Professor Keith Bennett, head of geography at Queen’s University Belfast, calculated that about 36 species would have to have become extinct each year between 2004 and
2008. In reality, three species of bird became extinct. He said that many species are far more versatile
than some prediction models give them credit for. “If it gets a couple of degrees warmer than they’re comfortable with, they don’t just die, they move,” he said.

Global Biodiversity Loss Leads to Global Fishing Collapse
Stokstad 06,
Staff Author for Science Magazine, Master’s Degree from University of California, Santa Cruz, November 3 rd 2006. (Erik
Stokstad, Global Biodiversity Loss Harming Ocean Bounty, Science Vol.314 p.745, http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/20031662.pdf?&acceptTC=true&jpdConfirm=true ; TMY)
Environmental groups often argue that biodiversity offers tangible benefits to people. Now, a group of ecologists
has put that argument to the test with the most comprehensive look
yet at the human impact of declining marine biodiversity
. On page 787, they report that the loss of ocean populations and species has been accompanied by plummeting catches of wild fish, declines in water quality, and other costly losses.
They even project that all commercial fish and seafood species will collapse by 2048
.
"It's a gloomy picture," says lead author Boris Worm of
Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada
. Yet the team provides a glimmer of hope
, concluding that people still have time to recoup these eco system benefits if they restore biodiversity
. Although none of these points is new, some experts say the study strengthens the case for the practical value of biodiversity by marshaling multiple lines of evidence and taking a global look. "This is a land mark paper," says Jane Lubchenco of Oregon State University in Corvallis. Others aren't convinced yet. "It falls short of demonstrating that biodiversity losses are the primary drivers of why the services have declined," says Donald Boesch of the University of Maryland Center for Environ mental Science in Cambridge. Past studies of so-called ecosystem services have demonstrated, for example, that a rich array of pollinators creates greater yields for coffee farmers (Science, | 20
August 2004, p. 1100). But proving that | such benefits exist on a global scale has g been difficult, particularly for the oceans, S which remain poorly studied. At your service. Highly diverse ecosystems, such as the Red Sea, provide many more ecological services than species-poor ecosystems. To gauge whether the loss of marine bio diversity matters, Worm and his co-authors reviewed all the data they could find on the issue. They discovered a consistent pattern. In 32 small-scale experiments, higher diversity of either marine plants or herbivores led to benefits such as greater ecosystem stability and 80% more biomass. A review of 12 estuaries and other coastal ecosystems found the same trend. Those with more species had lower rates of collapse of valuable fisheries than systems that were relatively species-poor to begin with. The team also argues that loss of filter feeders led to a decline in water quality, including depletion of oxy gen, in regions such as the Chesapeake Bay. Data for 64 large marine ecosystems showed that fisheries are collapsing at a higher rate in species-poor ecosystems than in species-rich ecosystems. "Within my lifetime, I might see global cessation of wild fisheries," Worm says. The good news is that closing fisheries and establishing protected areas boosted the number of species in these regions by 23% on average and increased catch-per unit effort four-fold in nearby waters, although overall yield didn't increase much. Still, Boesch and others note that it's difficult to prove that loss of diversity causes the decline in services. Boesch says that in the Chesapeake Bay, factors such as excessive fertilizer runoff probably are the real cause of the decline in water quality. Ray Hilborn, who studies fisheries at the University of
Washington, Seattle, adds that fishing doesn't necessarily causes ecosystems to be less productive; the long-exploited Mediterranean, he points out, continues to be productive. Worm and his colleagues call for the creation of new marine reserves, sustainable management of fishing, and tighter control of pollution. Those are well-worn recommendations, but Worm says the team's analysis of the consequences of not taking action, especially the loss of wild fisheries, gives them greater weight. "If you can see the bot tom of the barrel, that changes things."

[Nolin, Robert, writer for the Sun Sentinel, February 1st, 2012, Christina, “Doctors develop life-saving drugs from coral reefs”, February accessed on 7/20/14 at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/florida-coral-reefsalarming-decline_n_2594504.html?view=print&comm_ref=false] SB
The region's coral reefs
, including those off South Florida
, have ceased growing at an "extremely alarming" rate and may be poised for massive erosion
, a new study has determined. A recent report by
an international group of scientists concluded that coral reef growth, especially reefs in shallow water like that offshore South
Florida, has declined by as much as 70 percent.
"
Reefs have gone downhill all over the place and this study has added more evidence," said Professor Richard Dodge
, director of the National Ocean Reef Institute at
Nova Southeastern University
in Davie. "We're in a period of slow to no growth here in Southeast Florida's coral reefs." Reefs matter to local economies, Dodge said. A 2000 study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that through boating, diving, fishing and related activities, reefs fuel a $6 billion annual economic boost to Broward, Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Martin counties. They account for some 71,000 jobs. "If you understand it's an economic engine and creates an economy, it becomes even more important," Dodge said. Coral reefs stretch offshore from Palm Beach to Miami-Dade counties, and extend out from a quarter mile to three miles. Their depth ranges from about 15 feet near shore to 100 feet farther out. Scientists from universities in Maine, Canada, Australia and
New Zealand participated in the study, which examined coral reef growth in the Caribbean region. Their conclusion, published in "Nature
Communications," found coral in the region has stopped growing to a large degree and may begin eroding
.
"Our estimates of current rates of reef growth in the Caribbean are extremely alarming," said
Professor Chris Perry of Britain's University of Exeter
, lead researcher in the study. "If these trends continue, reef erosion looks far more likely." The study credits the slowed growth to a drop in the coral's production of calcium carbonate, or limestone, which forms the foundation upon which coral grows. That production has declined most dramatically in shallow water reefs, the study found. "It almost certainly applies to our reefs, they're not in a high production mode of calcium carbonate," Dodge said. Reefs need a delicate balance of growth and erosion, the scientists said. If that balance becomes upset, deterioration is inevitable, because the coral has no firm foundation, or substrate, upon which to grow. "Some of us are quite worried about what happens when the substrate itself starts to deteriorate," said John McManus, marine biology professor with the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric
Science. Climate change and pollution are the main culprits, Dodge said. But reef erosion can take a hundred years. "Within a hundred years you're going to be worried about sea level rise here," McManus said. "We're going to either have to build dikes or start moving."
[
Vincent, Marine Pollution Bulletin: "The Critical Importance of <350ppm CO2", 25 September, 2009 Various authors: J.E.N. Verona, , , O.
Hoegh-Guldbergb, , T.M. Lentonc, , J.M. Loughd, , D.O. Oburae, , P. Pearce-Kellyf, 1, , C.R.C. Sheppardg, , M. Spaldingh, i, , M.G. Stafford-Smitha,
, A.D. Rogersj., http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X09003816 Retrieved 7/20/2014]
In contrast, the future path of mass bleaching events is only too clear. Rising sea surface temperatures
will lead to increased severity of El Niño-associated thermal anomalies and consequently mass
bleaching (Sheppard, 2003, Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007, Veron, 2008a and Baker et al., 2008). Current models predict an increase in the amplitude of the El Niño Southern Oscillation with no change in
frequency (Guilyardi, 2006). However, incidence of mass bleaching is now likely to de-couple from El
Niño cycles in many parts of the world as indicated by the observation that damaging temperatures
are already starting to occur during non-El Niño years. This will put affected reefs at increasing annual risk, greatly shortening event return times and decreasing resilience (Sheppard, 2003).
Some reefs, notably those of the southern Red Sea (which has naturally high temperature) and parts of the ‘Coral Triangle’ (Roberts et al., 2002, Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2009 and Veron et al., 2009) (which

has natural refugia) are likely to be relatively less vulnerable to mass bleaching as are other locations
which could benefit from temporary changes in water circulation. Nevertheless, such effects can only offer a short-term reprieve: at the current rate of increase in global CO2 emissions (now exceeding 3% per year) a level of 450 ppm, which far exceeds the most optimistic outlook for the viability of almost
all reefs, will be reached in the 2030s (Meehl et al., 2007 and Raupach et al., 2007). The result will be widespread destruction of coral communities, with a few persisting in shaded, turbid waters or at
depth (generally below 20 m in clear water). The major issue here is that reef-building corals will become rare members of tropical reef assemblages, threatening the ecological services provided by coral reefs to tens of thousands of other dependent species as well as coastal human societies.
Coral Extinction on the Brink
Guldberg 3-1414
[ Ove HoeghPhD at University of California, Director of the Global Change Institute at the University of
Queensland sciencedirect 14 march 2014 : : Coral reef sustainability through adaptation: glimmer of hope or persistent mirage?http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343514000062]NC
Evidence that corals and other organisms are, and can acclimatise, adapt and/or migrate successfully to the unprecedented rapid rates of environmental change is sparse and in the minds of some a persistent mirage. In this regard, evidence that corals will autonomously evolve into a resilience state
(i.e. benefiting efforts to achieve sustainability) under the current rapid changes to the environment is not supported by the literature. On the other hand, evidence of corals are ‘ losing the fight ’ is widespread and is increasing, with most long-term studies showing declines of around 50% since the early 1980s. Given the dependence of human communities on coral reefs for food, livelihoods, coastal protection and other services, these changes are likely to have serious long-term consequences for people, communities and nations. Given the long-term commitment that these changes involve, it is an imperative that we rapidly implement a global strategy that reduces both local and global stresses and thereby avoid future in which we experience loss of centrally important ecosystems such as coral reefs for thousands of years. For this reason, and given the extensive evidence to the contrary, believing that the evolution or migration of organisms will somehow magically alter the current trajectory of coral reef ecosystems under rapid anthropogenic climate change represents a dangerous mirage indeed.

[Plumer, Brad, Senior Editor at Vox, July 7, 2014,Brad, “Caribbean Coral Reefs Could Disappear Within a
Few Decades”, July 7th accessed on 7/19/14 at http://www.vox.com/2014/7/7/5876909/caribbeancoral-reefs-could-disappear-within-a-few-decades] SB
Coral reefs in the Caribbean are on track to "virtually disappear within a few decades," a major new report warns.
But there's also a way to slow decline.
Protecting just a single fish
— the
brightly colored parrotfish
— could help save the reefs from doom
. There's little doubt that the Caribbean's coral reefs have declined sharply since the 1970s, under heavy stress from invasive pathogens, overfishing, coastal pollution, tourism, and now global warming that's heating up the oceans.
It's reached the point that many conservation groups have given up hope for the Caribbean and are shifting their attention to protecting coral reefs elsewhere. But it may be too early to give up altogether.
The new report, from the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, takes an in-depth look at the decline of the Caribbean coral reefs between 1975 and 2012.
While the authors find that the situation is indeed bleak, they also outline a series of steps that could halt the destruction.
Crucially, the report recommends new protections for the region's parrotfish, which has long played a vital role in eating up algae that threatens to overrun the reefs (the parrotfish's feeding habits also help replenish coral sand). In recent decades, the parrotfish has been a victim of overfishing — and coral reefs have suffered as a result. Reversing that trend, the report notes, would be a crucial step, not least given the central role that reefs play in the region — from supporting tourism to nurturing fisheries to protecting against hurricanes and other storms.
The report found that average coral cover in the Caribbean
— that is, the proportion of reef surface covered by live coral
— has declined from 34.8 percent in the
1970s to around 16.8 percent today.
And, if anything, that understates the damage, since much of the decline happened before coral scientists even began working on the reef and establishing a baseline. The report also notes that the decline of the
Caribbean happened in three distinct stages: 1) Foreign pathogens: In the early 1970s and 1980s,
Elkhorn corals began dying off en masse, likely due to foreign pathogens transported in the ballast water of bulk carrier ships. (Because the Caribbean was so isolated for millions of years before the arrival of Europeans, its reefs are incredibly vulnerable to outside species.) 2) Algae invasion
: There was another huge decline in coral in the 1980s as algae began taking over the reef.
That
mainly happened because
two of the biggest consumers of algae began disappearing. Another mysterious pathogen began killing off the sea urchin Diadema antillarum. And heavy spearfishing and fish traps led to a decline in the parrotfish. 3) Continued loss due to human activity.
The report notes that the region's coral reefs have continued to decline in the 1990s, for a variety of reasons:
In almost all regions, heavy tourism seems to be damaging coral reefs.
And the big problem here actually isn't from tourists going snorkeling among reefs. Instead, most of the damage comes from sediment and nutrient run-off from hotels, roads, and golf courses, as well as the dredging of harbors to make way for giant yachts and cruise ships.
(There are only a few places where coral reefs have thrived despite heavy tourism, such as Bermuda — likely due to strict protections.)
Overfishing is another major factor
— particularly of the parrotfish.
The report notes that coral reefs that have suffered from overfishing are less likely to recover after hurricanes and large storms. The report also mentions two smaller factors. Coastal pollution has increased in countries like Belize
, although there hasn't been much work linking pollution to increases in coral disease.
What's more, warmer ocean temperatures due to climate change appear to have been a factor in coral bleaching and the spreading of disease in regions like Puerto Rico and the Florida Keys.
So far, however, this hasn't been a major factor. All told, however, the warning is fairly urgent
. "Caribbean coral reefs and their associated resources will virtually disappear within just a few decades" — unless new protective steps are taken. The report puts a lot of emphasis on protecting

the parrotfish,
which feeds on the algae overrunning many reefs right now. The fish has become increasingly important to reef health ever since a mysterious pathogen killed off Diadema sea urchins in the 1980s.
Most parrotfish are under threat from spearfishing and fish traps.
And the report proposes enacting new protections for the species under various existing treaties and programs. Crucially, there does seem to be evidence that protecting the parrotfish works. "In some areas of the wider Caribbean (for example
Bermuda and the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park in the Bahamas, and more lately in Belize and Bonaire), active management including bans on fish traps, has led to increases in parrotfish numbers and consequent improvement in reef health and resilience to perturbations including hurricanes. This is in contrast to other areas within the Caribbean, where heavily fished reefs lacked the resilience to recover from storm damage."
The report
also emphasizes the need
for other protections — particularly to shield reefs from the harmful impacts of tourism and coastal development.
None of that is easy. But coral reefs are also extremely valuable in themselves.
They help attract tourists — a vital industry in the Caribbean. They underpin many key fisheries.
And they offer effective protection against storm surges and coastal flooding during hurricanes. One recent study found that coral reefs may be more effective than artificial seawalls in protecting against the rising seas.
[Nina Chestney- "Based in London, Nina helps coordinate Reuters' coverage of European power, gas, coal and renewables markets with a focus on policies, investment and trading. She also covers environment, climate change and new clean energy technologies. Nina has twelve years of journalistic experience. Previously at Reuters Nina covered carbon markets in London and EU energy policy and competition in Brussels. Newspaper
lexis nexis- http://www.lexisnexis.com/lnacui2api/api/version1/getDocCui?lni=56KK-TS31-
JBKR-
B53J&csi=270944,270077,11059,8411&hl=t&hv=t&hnsd=f&hns=t&hgn=t&oc=00240&perm a=true]NC
The chance to save the world's coral reefs from damage caused by climate change is dwindling as man-made green-house gas emissions continue to rise, scientists said in a study released Sunday.
¶
About 70 per cent of corals are expected to suffer from long-term degradation by 2030, even if strict emission cuts are enforced, the study has found.
¶
"The window of opportunity to preserve the
majority of coral reefs, part of the world's natural heritage, is small," said Malte Meinshausen, coauthor of the report published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
¶
"We close this window if we
follow another decade of ballooning global greenhouse-gas emissions."
¶
Coral reefs are home to almost a quarter of the world's ocean species; they provide coastal protection and support tourism and fishing industries for millions of people worldwide.
¶
The rise of global average temperatures, warmer seas and the spread of ocean acidification due to greenhouse gas emissions pose major threats to
coral ecosystems.
¶
The scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the University of British Columbia and the universities of Melbourne and Queensland in Australia used climate models to calculate the effects of different emissions levels on 2,160 reefs worldwide.
¶
World carbon dioxide emissions increased by more than three per cent last year, and global average temperatures have risen by about 0.8 degrees Celsius over the past century.
¶
Coral reefs face serious threats even if global warming is restricted to a 2 degrees Celsius limit, widely viewed as a safe threshold to avert the most devastating effects of climate change, such as drought, sea level rise or crop failure.
¶
Warmer sea surface temperatures are likely to trigger more frequent and more intense mass coral bleaching, the study said.
¶
Although corals can survive bleaching, if the heat persists they can die. This happened in
1998 when 16 per cent of corals were lost in a single, prolonged period of warmth worldwide.
¶
Ocean acidification can put even more stress on corals. As more carbon dioxide is absorbed from the

atmosphere, sea water turns more acidic, which can hinder the calcification crucial for coral growth.
¶
"Thus, the threshold to protect at least half of the coral reefs worldwide is estimated to be below 1.5
degrees Celsius mean temperature increase," the study said.
¶
Guldberg 3 -1414
[ Ove HoeghPhD at University of California, Director of the Global Change Institute at the University of
Queensland, sciencedirect 14 march 2014 : Coral reef sustainability through adaptation: glimmer of hope or persistent mirage? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343514000062]NC
Evolution by natural selection has also been suggested as a mechanism by which thermal and chemical limits of current populations may shift to become more tolerant as oceans warm and acidify.
Given time, corals, like any organism are likely to adapt to local conditions, which is reflected in observation that corals are locally adapted to temperature, be that at a local [48] or geographic [49,
50 and 51] scales. However, the rate of environmental change as well as extent to which stabilisation of environmental conditions occurs or not, are crucial factors determining whether or not the evolution of corals, and marine life in general, is likely to keep pace with anthropogenic warming and acidification of the Ocean. The biological characteristics of the community and species are also important. In this respect, generation times as well as the amount of genetic variability within a population are crucial factors determining the ability of locally adapted populations to increase their thermal tolerance. There is little doubt that organisms such as bacteria, which have short generation times (minutes to hours) and high mutation rates will be able to keep up changes to ocean conditions, even if current rates of change are unprecedented in the past 65 Ma if not 300 Ma [22]. Corals, on the other hand, mostly have generation times from 5 to over 100 years [52] and hence do not have the demographic characteristics that favour rapid evolution. The hypothesis that reef-building corals may be able to swap their symbionts for more thermally adapted varieties [53] has not been supported by the sizeable number studies that have sought to show that corals can take on truly novel symbionts that enable them to survive higher sea temperatures. These studies have also suffered from a number of other issues including the assumption that the dinoflagellate symbionts are the only factor (i.e. excluding the coral host) determining the overall thermal tolerance of the mutualistic symbiosis [45,
54, 55 and 56].
¶
While the evidence for the rapid evolution of corals is virtually non-existent, there is substantial evidence for why the rapid evolution of tolerance to future environmental conditions is unlikely to occur. Firstly, the rates of environmental change exceed those seen over the past hundreds of thousands if not tens of millions of years [11, 22• and 57]. Secondly, the generation time of organisms such as reef building corals is relatively long [52]. The third, which is often overlooked, is that conditions with respect to ocean warming and acidification are set to change continuously for hundreds of years under our current emission pathway [35]. That is, we are imposing conditions that change continuously and which are not the ‘step change’ which would otherwise enable populations and communities to ‘catch up’ with a particular environmental change. The last issue is that adaptation to thermal stress is unlikely to be simple and is likely to involve scores of genes and cellular processes that need to be adjusted [58]. Consequently, evolution of tolerance to changing temperatures and sea water chemistry is unlikely to be a simple selection process (i.e. the change in a single gene) but rather a complex set of changes across multiple genes. The probability of suitable combinations decreases geometrically as the number of genetic changes required increases.
¶
Not surprisingly, the distribution and abundance of coral populations is decreasing rapidly in most parts of the world [13, 14, 15, 16 and 17] under increasing levels local and global drivers of stress. This

problem is exacerbated by the fact that anthropogenic ocean warming and acidification is unlikely to stabilise for many hundreds of years under current scenarios for the emission of CO2 and methane.
Until this happens, adaptations arising within a population of corals will not have the time required to spread given that the same adaptation will quite rapidly become unfit as ocean temperatures and sea water chemistry continue to change.

-2314 [Caroline- Senior Editor of Science, Education: B.Sc., Ph.D., Leeds University
Areas of responsibility: Reviews; microbiology, parasitology, infectious diseases, virology, epidemiology, ocean ecology, evolution Science 23 May 2014: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6186/868.5.full]NC
How well can corals adapt to temperature extremes? Better than anticipated, it turns out. Corals from
reef pools with wide temperature fluctuations resist stress better than corals from less extreme pools.
Nevertheless, corals transplanted into the hotter and more variable conditions soon acquired thermal
tolerance. Palumbi et al. (see the Perspective by Eakin) found that the tougher specimens produced
more of certain proteins, such as the tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily, which protected them from the effects of heat. Ramping up heat shock and transport proteins yielded heat tolerance far more rapidly than mutation and adaptation. Hopefully, this ability will allow some mitigation of climate change on coral reefs.

[Cesar, Beukering, Pintz, and Dierking, Hawaii Coral Reef Initiative Program, December 23rd, 2002,
“Economic valuation of the coral reefs of Hawaii ”, December accessed on 7/20/14 at http://coastalsocioeconomics.noaa.gov/core/reefs/hicesar.pdf] SB
Coral reefs are among the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth. They are found in the warm, clear, shallow waters of tropical oceans worldwide.
Coral reefs provide shelter and food for a large variety of organisms.
Indeed, the foodweb on a reef is extremely complex.
Corals and coral reefs are rather sensitive to certain disturbances and even slight changes in the reef environment may have detrimental effects on the health of entire coral colonies.
These changes may be due to
a variety of factors. These can be categorized as natural disturbances and anthropogenic disturbances.
Although natural disturbances may cause severe changes in coral communities, anthropogenic disturbances have been linked to the vast majority of decreases in coral cover and general colony health when coral reefs and humans occur together
(Turner, 2000).
One of the greatest threats to coral reefs is human expansion and development. As development continues to alter the landscape, the amount of freshwater runoff increases.
This runoff may carry large amounts of sediment from land-clearing areas
, high levels of nutrients from agricultural areas or septic systems, as well as many pollutants such as petroleum products or insecticides
. Whether it is direct sedimentation onto the reef or an increase in the turbidity of the water due to eutrophication, decreases in the amounts of light reaching corals may cause bleaching and mortality (Brown and Ogden 1993). In addition, increases in the amounts of nutrients enhance the growth of other reef organisms such as algae that may out-compete corals for space on crowded reefs. In addition to runoff
, outflows from water treatment plants and power plants are the cause of much damage to coral reefs. Sewage treatment facilities can greatly increase the nutrient levels surrounding their outflow pipes while large power plants increase water temperatures by discharging cooling water into the coastal waters.
As with all these factors, the pressure for the continued degradation of coral reefs is exacerbated by the increasing size of the human population.
As this population increases, so does the harvest of resources from the sea
. Due to overfishing, reef fish populations have been greatly decreased in some areas of the world. The removal of large numbers of reef fish shifts the ecological balance on reefs and allows macro algae, once controlled by large grazing fish populations, to become dominant on reefs in many regions
. Due to decreased yields, fishermen have been forced to change their catch methods
in order to get enough fish to sustain their needs.
In some areas this has led to the introduction of fish traps and nets
with small mesh diameters that catch even the small juvenile fish.
In other areas of the world, the use of explosives or poisons has become quite common
(Richmond 1993). Not only do
these practices kill all fish in the affected areas,
but they severely damage the reefs habitat that these fish rely on as well.
The complexity of the ecology of coral reefs makes it difficult to model these processes in a realistic manner. To simulate the numerous interdependencies and the multiple threats to coral reefs requires a huge modeling effort with enormous data needs. Even then, it leaves us with large scientific uncertainties. On the other hand, ignoring the ecological processes in the analysis is also undesirable. Therefore, we have developed a simplified ecological model, referred to as SCREEM
(Simple Coral Reef Ecological Economic Model) on the basis of existing knowledge and literature.
[Mebrahtu Ateweberhan et al. Visiting Research Fellow at University of Warwick Location London, United Kingdom
Industry. "Marine Pollution Bulletin Volume 74, Issue 2, 30 September 2013, Pages 526–539" Retrieved July 19th,
2014]

For many years the main causes of deterioration of coral reefs were from industrial pollution, nutrient pollution from sewage and land run off, and from direct disturbances such as dredging, which liberates vast pulses of pollutants and sediments, as well as overfishing and destructive fishing. In many areas, these concerns have in no way diminished (Fig. 1). For example, in the Arabian Gulf all these activities are increasingly present and causing extensive harm to reef systems (Feary et al., 2012 and Riegl and
Purkis, 2012), and even in relatively well-managed seas, such as eastern Australia, nutrient run-off is considered a major problem (Leon and Warnken, 2008). Similarly, overfishing continues to be a major problem in many places (Jackson et al., 2001 and Hughes et al., 2007) and marine diseases are increasing in extent in many locations (Harvell et al., 2002). All these impacts on coral reefs are associated directly with proximity to human activities (Lirman and Fong, 2007). In fact, until immediately before the 1998 global warming event, ‘risk’ to reefs had a marked correlation with distance to human habitation, with remote reef systems presumed to be less at risk (Bryant et al., 1998).
[Jelle Bijma et al. VCA examens at Vanneaugroep& Partners "Marine Pollution Bulletin Volume 74, Issue 2, 30
September 2013, Pages 495–505" Retrieved July 19th, 2014]
The appearance of the “deadly trio” of risk factors, ocean warming, acidification and deoxygenation are all consequences of a perturbation of the carbon cycle (fast release of carbon dioxide and/or methane) and are a major cause of concern. Historically these factors have combined to contribute to mass extinction events. The present rate of change is unprecedented. Perhaps most worrying is that this is happening to ecosystems that are already undermined by many man-made stressors such as overfishing, eutrophication and pollution (Harnik et al., 2013). To re-emphasize one example, the combination of temperature rise, increased frequency and intensity of extreme events and acidification may irreversibly destroy coral reefs, the most species-rich ecosystems in the ocean, within 50–100 years
(Veron et al., 2009).
[
Vincent, Marine Pollution Bulletin: "The Critical Importance of <350ppm CO2", 25 September, 2009 Various authors: J.E.N. Verona, , , O.
Hoegh-Guldbergb, , T.M. Lentonc, , J.M. Loughd, , D.O. Oburae, , P. Pearce-Kellyf, 1, , C.R.C. Sheppardg, , M. Spaldingh, i, , M.G. Stafford-Smitha,
, A.D. Rogersj., http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X09003816 Retrieved 7/20/2014]
Regionally significant mass bleaching of corals (bleaching of multiple species on an ecologically significant scale) was first observed in the late 1970s and was soon correlated with abnormally high
sea temperatures, especially pulses naturally induced by El Niño events, which currently recur every 4–7 years (Glynn, 1984, Glynn, 1990 and Glynn, 1991) superimposed on generally elevated sea temperatures due to global warming (Hoegh-Guldberg, 1999). Detailed surveys of mass bleaching were first conducted in 1979/1980 in the Caribbean and surrounding seas (Hughes, 1994) (notably in Jamaica and the
Bahamas), the far eastern Pacific (Panama and the Galápagos Islands), in isolated instances in the Pacific
(notably French Polynesia and Thailand) (Brown, 1997 and Brown et al., 2000) and on the Great Barrier
Reef (Berkelmans and Oliver, 1999 and Berkelmans et al., 2004).
Although there are many other causes of more restricted bleaching in corals, the worldwide
phenomenon colloquially known as ‘mass bleaching’ has been shown to require a combination of both

sunlight and abnormally high water temperature (Hoegh-Guldberg, 1999). Small increases (1–2 °C) in sea temperature above the long-term summer maxima destabilises the relationship between host corals and their symbiotic dinoflagellate algae (zooxanthellae), on which they rely for energy and
growth (Muscatine, 1973 and Trench, 1979). In high light conditions, there is a breakdown of the photosymbiotic system which causes a toxic buildup of reactive oxygen derivatives and results in a loss of the brown algae from the tissues leaving them white or ‘bleached’. If the effect is short-lived, corals may recover, otherwise they become prone to disease and death. This dependence on both light and temperature has been confirmed in corals kept in shaded aquaria (Jones et al., 1998 and many subsequent studies) as well as those growing naturally on reefs (Mumby et al., 2001).
Unlike most ecosystems where the effects of climate change are matters of future prediction, mass bleaching of corals has been studied for 30 years and is understood in considerable detail (Glynn,
1993, Buddemeier et al., 2004 and van Oppen and Lough, 2008).

[ Kent E- Professor of Biological Sciences at Old Dominion University,
Manager of the IUCN Global Marine
Species Assessment (GMSA) Ph.D. Zoology, 1985 at University of Hawaii, Honolulu, B.S. Biology, Marine Biology
Major, 1975 at Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida
Science 25 July 2008: One-Third of Reef-Building Corals Face Elevated Extinction Risk from Climate
Change and Local Impacts http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5888/560.full]NC
Coral reefs harbor the highest concentration of marine biodiversity. They have high aesthetic, recreational, and resource values that have prompted close scientific scrutiny, including long-term monitoring ( 1 , 2 ), and face increasing threats at local and global scales. Globally, rapid buildup of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere is leading to both rising sea surface temperatures (with an increased likelihood of mass coral bleaching and mortality) and acidification
( 3 ). Ocean acidification is reducing ocean carbonate ion concentrations and the ability of corals to build skeletons ( 4 ). Local threats include human disturbances such as increased coastal development, sedimentation resulting from poor land-use and watershed management, sewage discharges, nutrient loading and eutrophication from agro-chemicals, coral mining, and overfishing ( 1 , 2 , 5 – 9 ). Local anthropogenic impacts reduce the resilience of corals to withstand global threats, resulting in a global deterioration of reef structure and ability of these ecosystems to sustain their characteristic complex ecological interactions ( 1 – 3 , 5 – 9 ).
¶ In view of this ecosystem-level decline, we used International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List
Categories and Criteria to determine the extinction risk of reef-building coral species. These criteria have been widely used and rely primarily on population size reduction and geographic range information to classify, in an objective framework, the extinction risk of a broad range of species ( 10 ). Categories range from Least Concern, with very little probability of extinction, to high risk, Critically Endangered ( Table 1 ). The threatened categories (Vulnerable, Endangered, and Critically Endangered) are intended to serve as one means of setting priority measures for biodiversity conservation.¶
View this table:¶ In this window
¶ ¶
In a new window
¶
Table 1.
¶ Current Red List Categories for reef-building coral species by family. Percentages in threatened categories (Thr) include all non–data-deficient species listed as VU, EN, or CR, whereas Near Threatened and threatened (NT + Thr) include all non– data-deficient species listed as NT, VU, EN, or CR.¶ Our assessments of extinction risk cover all known zooxanthellate reef-building corals and include 845 species from the
Scleractinia plus reef-building octocorals and hydrocorals (families Helioporidae, Tubiporidae, and Milleporidae). Corals have persisted for tens of millions of years, and the many widespread species in particular are not obvious candidates for extinction. However, periods of mass coral extinctions are known from the fossil record ( 11 , 12 ), so conditions must have persisted that allowed populations to be reduced below sustainable levels. Up to 45% of all coral species went extinct around the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, with significantly more zooxanthellate than azooxanthellate extinctions ( 13 ). With reports of current widespread reef destruction ( 2 ) and unprecedented population declines in particular species ( 14 , 15 ), we used IUCN Red List Criteria to investigate whether present conditions have placed corals at elevated extinction risk.¶ Nearly all extinction risk assessments were made with the IUCN criterion that uses measures of population reduction over time ( 10 ). Most reef-building corals do not have sufficient longterm species-specific monitoring data to calculate actual population trends; consequently we used widely cited and independently corroborated estimates of reef area lost ( 2 , 10 ) as surrogates for population reduction. These estimates suffer from lack of standardized quantitative methodology, and so we interpreted them conservatively and weighted declines both regionally and by species-specific life history traits, including susceptibility to the threats causing reef area declines ( 10 ). Therefore, rates of population decline for each species have their basis in the rate of habitat loss within its range adjusted by an assessment of the species-specific response to habitat loss (so more-resilient species have slower rates of decline)
( 10 ).
¶ Of the 845 reef-building coral species, 141 had insufficient data to complete a Red
List assessment ( Table 1 ) and were excluded from subsequent calculations. Of the remaining 704 species, 231 are listed in the threatened categories, whereas 407 are in threatened and Near
Threatened categories combined ( Table 1 ). Species in the families Euphylliidae, Dendrophylliidae, and
Acroporidae are particularly at risk, with more than or close to 50% of species in a threatened category; the figures are around 40% for Meandrinidae and Oculinidae. Heliopora coerulea , the sole extant member of the ancient family Helioporidae, is rated as Vulnerable. The only species that do not fall within threatened categories are those that inhabit deeper, lower reef slopes and those not solely dependent on reef habitats (i.e., inter-reefal species). The Caryophyllidae, Astrocoeniidae, Merulinidae, and Fungiidae have the lowest proportions of threatened species.
¶
In terms of species-specific vulnerability to impacts, about 40% of the 704 species are primarily reef-restricted, shallow water corals (<20 m depth) (10) that are susceptible to general anthropogenic disturbances . The remaining 60% of species can survive on deeper reefs (>20 m depth), in marginal reef habitats, or in off-reef areas. There are 303 species highly susceptible to bleaching, although 102 of these typically grow quickly and populations recover within a few years ( 7 ). About 52% of the bleaching-susceptible species (mainly in the Acroporidae) are also heavily affected by disease and predation from the crown-of-thorns seastar, Acanthaster planci .
Acroporid corals account for a high percentage of coral cover on reefs ( 11 , 12 ) and for a high proportion of the threatened species ( Table 1 ). Eighty species are considered resistant to bleaching and include mostly members of the genera Favia and Porites .
¶ Our results indicate that the extinction risk of corals has

increased dramatically over the past decade ( Fig. 1 ). By using the values from previous reports of the
Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network ( 16 ), we determined extinction risk levels before the 1998 massive bleaching events ( 10 ). Before 1998, 671 of the 704 data-sufficient species would have been categorized as of Least Concern, 20 as Near Threatened, and only 13 in threatened categories . Although an estimated 6.4% of reefs recovered from the 1998 bleaching event about 5 years after it occurred, 16% were considered irreversibly destroyed after subsequent monitoring ( 2 ). Another study shows an increasing rate of coral cover loss in the Indo-Pacific of 1 to 2% per year
The proportion of threatened (not including Near Threatened) coral species exceeds that of most terrestrial animal groups apart from amphibians, particularly because of corals' apparent susceptibility to climate change ( 10 ).
At slightly elevated sea surface temperatures, corals expel their symbionts, often resulting in colony death if the heat stress persists ( 7 ).
Adult reef-building corals are restricted to well-lit tropical waters and are sessile, not having the option to move to cooler water. This also makes them susceptible to localized disturbances that can magnify the stress on a system already affected by warming seas.¶ Regionally, Caribbean reefs (
Fig. 2 ) have been devastated by population declines of two key species, Acropora cervicornis (staghorn coral) and A. palmata (elkhorn coral) ( 14 , 15 , 17 ), which were recently listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species
Act. They were spatial dominants and primary framework builders during the Pleistocene and Holocene; their loss has had a major ecological impact ( 14 , 15 ). Another major
Caribbean reef-builder, Montastraea annularis , has been listed as Endangered because of a rapid population decline over the past decade; on many reefs it is no longer dominant ( 10 ). It is the largest coral species in this region, has very slow recruitment ( 18 ), and is also highly susceptible to disease that can kill 500-year-old colonies within months, with recovery unlikely for decades.¶ In the eastern tropical Pacific, a high proportion of corals have been affected by warming events. However, subsequent monitoring has shown reefs are recovering in most areas across the region ( 19 ). Indian Ocean corals were the most affected by the 1998 warming event with two subsequent bleaching events in some places. Many of the shallow reefs have lost their three-dimensional rugosity, with cascading trophic and ecological effects including subsequent loss of fish populations ( 20 ). Other reefs are recovering their structure, but the time to complete recovery may range to decades and will be highly dependent on future climatic and local disturbance regimes.¶ The epicenter of marine biodiversity in the Indo-Malay-Philippine archipelago, the Coral Triangle (
11 , 21 ), has the highest proportion of Vulnerable and
Near Threatened coral species ( Fig. 2, C and D ). The chronic nature of anthropogenic disturbance in many parts of this region is compounded by the effects of climate change.¶
Corals in oceanic islands of the Pacific generally have the lowest proportion of threatened species ( Fig. 2 ), and Hawaiian reefs have been spared extensive coral loss from bleaching or disease ( 22
–
25 ). However, Hawaii is an isolated archipelago with high levels of endemism ( 23 ), and several rare endemic species may prove especially vulnerable to future threats.
¶
Our analysis indicates that the extinction risk for many corals is now much greater than it was before recent massive bleaching events. Whether corals actually go extinct this century (12) will depend on the continued severity of climate change, the extent of other environmental disturbances, and the ability of corals to adapt. If bleaching events become very frequent, many species may be unable to reestablish breeding populations before subsequent bleaching causes potentially irreversible declines, perhaps mimicking conditions that led to previous coral extinctions (13). If corals cannot adapt, the cascading effects of the functional loss of reef ecosystems will threaten the geologic structure of reefs and their coastal protection function and have huge economic effects on food security for hundreds of millions of people dependent on reef fish. Our consensus view is that the loss of reef ecosystems would lead to large-scale loss of global biodiversity.

The world is on the brink of a massive extinction event, according to the United Nations. Rapid releases of greenhouse gas emissions are changing habitats at a rate faster than many of the world's species can tolerate.
"Indeed the world is currently facing a sixth wave of extinctions, mainly as a result of human impacts
," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme in a statement.
A study earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science said the current extinction period
, known as the Holocene extinction event, may be the greatest event in the Earth's history and the first due to human actions. Unlike previous events,
however, extinctions are happening over the course of decades rather than centuries.
Recent studies suggest that a quarter of the world's species may go extinct by 2050.
The UN warning accompanies an increasingly frequent round of sobering news about ecosystem failures.
The latest global coral reef assessment estimates that 19 percent of the world's coral reefs are dead.
Their major threats include warming sea-surface temperatures and expanding seawater acidification
.
Zooxanthellae, the tiny organisms that give coral reefs their vibrant colors, are emigrating from their hosts in massive numbers as oceans heat up, killing themselves and the coral they leave behind - a process known as coral bleaching.
The report, released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network Wednesday
at the international climate change negotiations in Poznań, Poland
, predicts that many of the remaining reefs may disappear within the next 40 years if current emission trends continue.
"If nothing is done to substantially cut emissions, we could effectively lose coral reefs as we know them, with major coral extinctions," said Clive Wilkinson, the network's coordinator, in a press release. Overfishing, pollution, and invasive species continue to be risks as well, according to the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The IUCN declared in October
that
38 percent of the 44,838 species it studied across the world are threatened with extinction. Its Red List of Threatened Species considers 22 percent of the world's mammals, 31 percent of amphibians, and 14 percent of birds threatened or extinct. Steiner's warnings of mass extinction came last week as the U.N. Convention on the
Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals added 21 migratory species to its protection list.
Migratory species are among the most at-risk to climate change, according to a UNEP report released last year [PDF]. To its list of protected animals, which include the cheetah and Egyptian vulture, the convention added six dolphin species.
Nearly one-quarter of the world's dolphin species are threatened with extinction, mostly due to habitat loss and live capture, according to IUCN. The demise of coral reefs, however, affects the entire ocean ecosystem - a quarter of all marine fish species reside in the reefs, according to The Nature Conservancy. In addition, IUCN estimates that 500 million people depend on coral reefs for their livelihoods.
The coral reef assessment found that 45 percent of the world's reefs are healthy - providing hope that some species may be able to endure the changes expected from global warming. Marine biologists are now attempting to understand how certain coral reef species can survive warmer, more acidic ocean waters
when others are less fortunate.

Coral reefs are key for the economy and will be lost unless action is taken NOW.
Hawaii Coral Reef Initiative Program 02
[Lindsay Harmon and Jessica Aldred, writers at The Guardian, July 7 th , 2014, “Study: Caribbean coral reefs will be lost within 20 years”, December accessed on 7/20/14 at http://seattletimes.com/html/outdoors/2024012938_caribbeanreefsdisappearingxml.html] SB
Most Caribbean coral reefs will disappear within the next 20 years unless action is taken to protect them
, primarily due to the decline of grazers such as sea urchins and parrotfish, a new report has warned.
A comprehensive analysis by 90 experts of more than 35,000 surveys conducted at nearly 100 Caribbean locations since
1970 shows that the region’s corals have declined by more than 50 percent.
But restoring key fish populations and improving protection from overfishing and pollution could help the reefs recover and make them more resilient to the impacts of climate change, according to the study from the Global
Coral Reef Monitoring Network, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the
U.N.’s Environment Program.
While climate change and the resulting ocean acidification and coral bleaching does pose a major threat to the region
, the report
— Status and Trends of Caribbean Coral Reefs: 1970-2012
— found that local pressures such as tourism, overfishing and pollution posed the biggest problems.
And these factors have made the loss of the two main grazer species, the parrotfish and sea urchin, the key driver of coral decline in the
Caribbean. Grazers are important fish in the marine ecosystem as they eat the algae that can smother corals. An unidentified disease led to a mass mortality of the sea urchin in 1983 and overfishing throughout the 20th century has brought the parrotfish population to the brink of extinction in some regions, according to the report. Reefs where parrotfish are not protected have suffered significant declines, including
Jamaica, the entire Florida reef tract from Miami to Key West, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. At the same time, the report showed that some of the healthiest Caribbean coral reefs are those that are home to big populations of grazing parrotfish. These include the U.S. Flower Garden Banks national marine sanctuary in the northern Gulf of Mexico, Bermuda and Bonaire — all of which have restricted or banned fishing practices that harm parrotfish. The Caribbean is home to 9 percent of the world’s coral reefs, but only around one-sixth of the original coral cover remains
.
The reefs
, which span 38 countries, are vital to the region’s economy and support the more than 43 million people, generating more than $3 billion annually from tourism and fisheries
and much more in other goods and services. According to the authors, restoring parrotfish populations and improving other management strategies could help the reefs recover. “The rate at which the Caribbean corals have been declining is truly alarming,” said Carl Gustaf Lundin, director of IUCN’s global marine and polar program
. “But this study brings some very encouraging news: the fate of Caribbean corals is not beyond our control and there are some very concrete steps that we can take to help them recover.”
Reefs that are protected from overfishing, as well as other threats such as excessive coastal pollution, tourism and coastal development, are more resilient to pressures from climate change, according to the authors. “Even if we could somehow make climate change disappear tomorrow, these reefs would continue their decline,” said Jeremy
Jackson, lead author of the report and IUCN’s senior adviser on coral reefs. “We must immediately address the grazing problem for the reefs to stand any chance of surviving future climate shifts.”
[Nolin, Robert, writer for the Sun Sentinel, February 1st, 2012, Christina, “Doctors develop life-saving drugs from coral reefs”, February accessed on 7/20/14 at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/florida-coral-reefsalarming-decline_n_2594504.html?view=print&comm_ref=false] SB
The region's coral reefs, including those off South Florida, have ceased growing at an "extremely alarming" rate and may be poised for massive erosion, a new study has determined. A recent report by an international group of scientists concluded that coral reef growth, especially reefs in shallow water like that offshore South Florida, has declined by as much as 70 percent. "Reefs have gone downhill all over the place and this study has added more evidence," said Professor Richard Dodge, director of the National Ocean Reef Institute at Nova Southeastern University

in Davie. "We're in a period of slow to no growth here in Southeast Florida's coral reefs." Reefs matter to local economies, Dodge said
. A
2000 study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that through boating, diving, fishing and related activities, reefs fuel a $6 billion annual economic boost to Broward, Palm
Beach, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Martin counties. They account for some 71,000 jobs.
"If you understand it's an economic engine and creates an economy
, it becomes even more important," Dodge said. Coral reefs stretch offshore from Palm Beach to Miami-Dade counties, and extend out from a quarter mile to three miles. Their depth ranges from about 15 feet near shore to 100 feet farther out. Scientists from universities in Maine, Canada, Australia and New Zealand participated in the study, which examined coral reef growth in the Caribbean region. Their conclusion, published in "Nature Communications," found coral in the region has stopped growing to a large degree and may begin eroding. "Our estimates of current rates of reef growth in the Caribbean are extremely alarming," said
Professor Chris Perry of Britain's University of Exeter, lead researcher in the study. "If these trends continue, reef erosion looks far more likely."
The study credits the slowed growth to a drop in the coral's production of calcium carbonate, or limestone, which forms the foundation upon which coral grows. That production has declined most dramatically in shallow water reefs, the study found. "It almost certainly applies to our reefs, they're not in a high production mode of calcium carbonate," Dodge said. Reefs need a delicate balance of growth and erosion, the scientists said. If that balance becomes upset, deterioration is inevitable, because the coral has no firm foundation, or substrate, upon which to grow. "Some of us are quite worried about what happens when the substrate itself starts to deteriorate," said John McManus, marine biology professor with the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science. Climate change and pollution are the main culprits, Dodge said. But reef erosion can take a hundred years. "Within a hundred years you're going to be worried about sea level rise here,"
McManus said. "We're going to either have to build dikes or start moving."
[J.E. Cinner et al. Professorial Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook
University "Global Environmental Change, Volume 22, Issue 1, February 2012, Pages 12-20" Australian Research
Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia.
Retrieved July 19th, 2014. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378011001579]
Millions of people depend on coral reefs for their income and livelihoods. For example, the Great Barrier
Reef alone contributes over $5 billion annually to Australia's economy (Access Economics, 2005). Coral reefs are particularly important for fisheries, tourism, and coastal protection, but also have high aesthetic values and some reefs have spiritual values (Cinner and Aswani, 2007 and Hicks et al., 2009).
Climate change is considered a key threat to coral reefs (Hughes et al., 2003) and to marine fisheries
(Allison et al., 2009 and Cheung et al., 2010). Climate-related events, such as increased sea surface temperatures (which can cause corals to bleach and die), can have profound impacts on coral reef ecosystems and the people that depend on them. To illustrate, in 1998, coral bleaching at an unprecedented scale caused widespread coral mortality across most of the western Indian Ocean, altering the goods and services provided by these reefs (Graham et al., 2007 and Pratchett et al., 2008).
Further east, in the central Indo-Pacific, Indonesia is expected to experience the most severe climaterelated declines in total marine fisheries of any nation, with projected reductions of over 20% by 2055
(Cheung et al., 2010). Resource users may also have to adapt the ways that they use coral reefs in response to management measures that aim to make coral reefs more resilient to the impacts of climate change (for example, the creation of marine reserves that prohibit fishing). Thus, questions of critical importance to resource managers, stakeholders, and scientists alike are how reef-dependant societies are being affected by, and what capacity they have to adapt to, climate change impacts.

KEY WEST -- The kaleidoscope of life in the coral reefs under the turquoise waters of the Florida Keys is a magnet for tourists, but it’s not just a pretty view.
The same chemistry that helps corals and sponges survive is also helping people fight cancer. “What we’re doing is taking advantage of that chemistry and turning those chemicals into drugs to save lives,” said Stephanie Wear, director of coral reef conservation at the Nature
Conservancy. Wear describes the reefs as the "New York City" of the oceans, “where everything is happening,” because it is 400 to 600 times more likely to find a source for a drug in the ocean than on land
-- and the densely packed coral reefs are an even more plentiful source. But climate change and waterway pollution threaten the sea life that house these healing properties.
“The
[coral reef] population is diminished by about 90 percent across the Caribbean
,” said James Byrne, the marine science program manager at the Nature Conservancy.
With corals under siege, scientists at the Nature Conservancy have created coral farms --- currently supporting more than 30,000 corals across Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands -- to sustainably harvest the life-saving properties of the reef. “We’re taking these corals and growing them out in nurseries just like a tree farm would and replanting them back on the reef and doing it in a way that we’re really maximizing that potential for reproduction in the future,” said Byrne. In the clear waters of the Florida Keys, scientists
glue some of the corals to cinder blocks on the ocean floor, and hang others from a rope resembling a laundry line, allowing them to float in the water.
Eventually, they hope to put out up to 4,000 corals a year – all to battle some of the worst diseases known to humankind: cancer, leukemia, AIDS -- and perhaps even Lupus, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s. The
Staghorn coral population has been decimated by warming oceans and disease.
The Nature Conservancy scuba team is working to regrow coral in nurseries on the ocean floor. Arden O'Connor, a 34-year-old who lives in Boston, Mass., beat leukemia with help from Ara-C, a chemotherapy drug originally derived from sea sponges
that thrive in the coral reefs. Without it, O'Connor said, she could have died at age 26. “I’ve spent most of my life swimming in the ocean but absolutely didn’t assume it would have anything to do with my cancer,” said O’Connor, who has been cancer-free for seven years.
Halaven, another drug also derived from a sea sponge, came on the market in Nov. 2010, and has improved survival among women who have metastatic breast cancer.
“Without the reefs and without doing that biodiversity conservation, we have no starting points,” said Dr. Edward Suh, who develops new drugs at Japanese pharmaceutical company Eisai, the lab that produces
Halaven. Using the chemicals present in the sea sponge saves time during the drug production process, he added. “In order to make this natural product a drug by synthesis, we would require over 60 steps,” he said. “And the typical drug is about 10 steps or less.” For many doctors, the drug has proven to be an exciting option for their patients. “Sometimes patients are interested in where the drugs come from … and it’s interesting because when you mention to them that it’s derived from a natural product they seem to be a little bit better with the concept of getting these types of therapies,” said Dr. Linda Vahdat, the director of the breast cancer research program at Weill Cornell
Medical College. “For millennia there have been natural products used to treat tumors and we know it from the ancient Egyptian writings --
and certainly moving into contemporary space we use a lot of natural products to treat our patients with breast cancer.”
[BBC News, highly credible news source, March 20, 2013, “Coral Reefs: Underwater Pharmacies”, March
20th accessed on 7/20/14 at http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130319-underwater-pharmacies] SB
These kaleidoscopes of colour and life cover less than 0.1% of the planet but are home to a quarter of all marine species. As a result, it’s a crowded place to live and underwater warfare reigns as animals vie for space and food.
Since many of the creatures on the reef are stationary, many have evolved chemical defences to protect themselves from predators.

These potent weapons may also hold the key to new medicines to treat everything from cancer and
Alzheimer’s disease to viruses and arthritis. Scientists have already collected and identified thousands of these compounds and are bringing treatments to market.
But coral reefs face an uncertain future putting this undersea medicine cabinet at risk. In this film ecological economist Dr Trista Patterson, lead scientist with The Nature Conservancy Dr M
Sanjayan and marine conservation biologist Professor Callum Roberts reveal the richness of life supported by coral reefs and the
contribution these colourful ecosystems are making to medical science.

[Sarah Hughes et al. a postdoctoral fellow in the Research Applications Laboratory of the National Center for
Atmospheric Research. "Environmental Science & Policy Volume 23, November 2012, Pages 95–108". Retrieved
July 19th, 2014. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901112001086]
Coral reefs are tropical nearshore marine ecosystems that are home to a high diversity of fish, invertebrates, algae, and reef-building corals. Coral reef fisheries are defined here as fisheries that harvest organisms associated with coral reefs and exclude pelagic and other non-reef species even if they are harvested nearshore. Coral reef fisheries are often artisanal and subsistent and use low capital and low technology to harvest both fish and invertebrates, primarily for local consumption and secondarily for trade (Cinner and McClanahan, 2006). While coral reefs are globally valued for their high biodiversity, locally they are a productive and easily accessible food resource for millions of people
(Kawarazuka and Bene, 2011). In Southeast Asia, for example, coral reef fisheries generate US$ 2.4 billion (Burke et al., 2002) while in the Caribbean they generate US$ 310 million per year by providing a range of ecosystem services to the economy and society (Burke and Maidens, 2004). As part of national food systems around the world, coral reef fisheries contribute to the food security of those countries.
According to Dulvy and Allison (2009), “catches by subsistence and artisanal fisheries make up more than half of the essential protein and mineral intake for over 400 million people in the poorest countries in Africa and south Asia.” For example, almost 60% of the animal protein of an average Indonesian resident comes from fish (Dey et al., 2005) and in eight Pacific Island countries and territories, 50–90% of animal protein in the diet of rural communities comes from fish (Bell et al., 2009).
Developing countries’ reliance on and use of subsistence coral reef fisheries for food and income is complicated by access arrangements and export issues. Subsistence fishers’ access to food and income can be limited by highly profitable, large-scale fisheries with sufficient capital to compete globally (Kent,
1997, Pauly et al., 2005 and Atta-Mills et al., 2004). Declining yields and increasingly restricted access may have serious implications for food security in some parts of the world. Policy and management efforts to address this issue will be assisted by evaluating the national context as it relates to food security.
[Vincent, Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. No Month Given, 2008,
"Status of Coral Reefs Around the World", Research Coordinated by C.Wilkinson, yearly report http://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/213229.pdf. , Retrieved July 20, 2014]
I In South-east Asia more than half the local communities surveyed are heavily
dependent on fishing as their primary source of income, underscoring the need for healthy coral reefs and associated fisheries. Destructive fishing methods, such as
cyanide and bomb fishing, are perceived as the most prevalent threats to the health of coral reefs and fisheries in the region, indicating that efforts to eradicate these methods, while effective in some regions (based on anecdotal evidence), should be increased to ensure food security and sustainable livelihoods for all coral-reef dependent communities.
II In the Caribbean, about one-third of surveyed local com m unities are dependent
on fishing; however, SocMon data indicate that tourism is rapidly changing local communities. Tourism is also heavily dependent on healthy coral reefs, and is

replacing fishing as the m ost im portant source of income for many communities
and is seen as a viable alternative livelihood to fishing. Most com m unities welcome tourism development for revenue generation, however, many are also expressing concern over negative impacts of tourism on their way of life.
II In the Pacific, LMMA data from 29 villages in Fiji indicate that most households in each village harvest marine resources on a small-scale for subsistence and sell
some excess. Commercial fishers comprise only a small portion of each village. The major threats to fishing grounds as noted from village m anagem ent plans include over-fishing (resulting in the rare to non sighting of certain fish and invertebrates),
garbage or pollution washing into the sea or along the coast, sedimentation from logging and forest clearing, and poor farming practices. Poaching in MPAs is also a problem indicating the need for greater com m itm ent to, and logistics for, the enforcement of MPA regulations.
[
Vincent, Marine Pollution Bulletin: "The Critical Importance of <350ppm CO2", 25 September, 2009 Various authors: J.E.N. Verona, , , O.
Hoegh-Guldbergb, , T.M. Lentonc, , J.M. Loughd, , D.O. Oburae, , P. Pearce-Kellyf, 1, , C.R.C. Sheppardg, , M. Spaldingh, i, , M.G. Stafford-Smitha,
, A.D. Rogersj., http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X09003816 Retrieved 7/20/2014]
Although they make up only 0.2% in area of the marine environment, coral reefs are the most
biodiverse ecosystems of the ocean, estimated to harbour around one third of all described marine
species (Reaka-Kudla, 1997 and Reaka-Kudla, 2001), most of which are found nowhere else. Their intricate three-dimensional landscapes promote elaborate adaptation, richly complex species
interdependencies, and a fertile source of medically active compounds (Fenical, 2002 and Bruckner,
2007). The extensive ramparts formed by reefs shield thousands of kilometres of coastline from wave erosion, protecting essential lagoon and mangrove habitat for vulnerable life stages of a wide range of commercial and non-commercial species (Johnson and Marshall, 2007).
More than 100 countries have coastlines with coral reefs (Moberg and Folke, 1999) and almost 500
million people (8% of the world’s population) live within 100 km of a reef (Bryant et al., 1998).
Consequently, tens of millions of people depend on reef ecosystems for protein and other services
(Costanza et al., 1997). Resulting exploitation, combined with lack of regulation, has resulted in severe depletion of many reef resources and has caused widespread reef degradation particularly in highly
populated regions (Pet-Soede et al., 1999). Despite these impacts, human dependence on reefs
continues to increase. The values of goods and services provided by reefs have not been accurately
determined, but estimates range from $172 billion to $375 billion per year (Moore and Best, 2001,
Wilkinson, 2002, Fischlin et al., 2007 and Martínez et al., 2007). This is probably underestimated given
that many of the benefits of coral reefs pass through non-market economies (Donner and Potere,
2007) or involve intangible ecosystem services such as sand production and gas exchange.
Importantly, the consequences of coral reef destruction would not be limited to the loss of the value of these goods and services, for the demise of reefs would also mean the extinction of a large part of
the Earth’s total biodiversity – something never experienced before in human history.

et al
-13-
.
[Filippo- Alma Mater Studiorum—University of Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche,
Geologiche e Ambientali BiGeA
Nature Communications 5-13-14 http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140513/ncomms4794/full/ncomms4794.html#authorinformation]NC
We provide the first quantitative meta-analysis of the role of coral reefs in reducing wave energy across reefs in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Combined results across studies show that coral reefs dissipate 97% of the wave energy that would otherwise impact shorelines
.
¶ Most (86%) of the wave energy is dissipated by the reef crest; this relatively high and narrow geomorphological area is the most critical in providing wave attenuation benefits. The reef flat dissipates approximately half of the remaining wave energy, most of the wave energy on the reef flat is dissipated in the first part of the reef flat (that is, the 150 m closest to the reef crest). This means that even narrow reef flats effectively contribute to wave attenuation. These results are consistent with both models and observations of coastal barriers that identified cross-shore bathymetric profile, and in particular the height of the barrier (for example, reef crest), as the most important variable in coastal defence considerations15, 26, 27, 28.
The depth of reefs, particularly at the shallowest points, is critical in providing wave attenuation benefits. In order to better quantify these benefits in the future, much greater emphasis needs to be placed on measuring the depth profile including across tidal cycles and during events when water levels are raised
( for example, storm surge).¶ After bathymetry, another critical factor in wave attenuation is bottom friction, which is a function of bottom roughness29, 30. Coral reef degradation has significant impacts on roughness. For example, the loss of branching Staghorn and Elkhorn corals (Acropora spp.) Caribbean-wide affects both height and roughness particularly on reef crests31. Unfortunately, most studies included in our meta-analysis did not report information on species composition or rugosity
.
Better information on these factors would inform reef restoration and conservation efforts, because they would allow better identification of those species critical to delivering wave attenuation benefits
.
¶
The whole reef dissipates energy with linear
(that is, constant) effect from small through hurricane-level waves.
The effect of the reef crest on wave reduction is nonlinear and intensifies as incident wave energy increases. These effects are critical for exposure reduction; reefs are relevant for risk reduction even during extreme events. For example, in 2005 during
Hurricane Wilma incident wave heights reached 13 m and the Meso-American reef attenuated 99% of this height32. These data are also consistent with common observations (for example, surfing videos) that large waves (>7 m) break and dissipate most of their energy on reef crests33. We also showed that reefs are critical not just for low-frequency, high-energy events (for example, storms and cyclones), but by significantly reducing swell waves they reduce coastal erosion from the high-frequency (that is, daily) wave events. Storms are known to have negative short-term impacts on coral cover34, 35, but reefs can be resilient and recover from these impacts36, 37. Understanding when reefs (like any defence structure) fail during high-energy events and how long they take to recover is critical. These are parameters that can be reasonably measured and modelled if we take a cross-disciplinary approach to the engineering and ecology of reefs.¶ Indeed, the role of reefs in coastal defence and how to restore these benefits needs to be addressed in greater detail, which will require greater collaboration among ecologists, engineers, geologists and oceanographers. Although coral reefs are one of the most well-studied marine ecosystems (for example, >18,000 papers on reef ecology and geology in the last 20 years), we found only 255 publications that even mentioned the role of reefs in wave attenuation, wave energy or wave breaking, and only 10% of these directly addressed the issue with data.
By comparison, there were >5,000 papers that noted coral reef fish and fisheries.¶
There are only a handful of studies of the implications of reef degradation for wave impacts on coastlines.
In the Maldives, Red Sea, Cancun (Mexico) and Bali (Indonesia) there are inferred links between increases in coastal development, reef degradation and investments in artificial defences, but only a few direct studies on causality18, 19, 20, 38, 39.
From a coastal engineering standpoint, any reef degradation (or sea-level rise) that increases water depth should result in more wave energy passing over the reef and through coastlines39. The loss of corals has led to real increases in wave energy reaching coastlines in the
Maldives39
.
¶
Based on our analyses and recent studies by the re-insurance industry6
, we find that reef conservation and restoration can be cost effective for risk reduction and adaptation
.
In considerations of effectiveness, coral reefs can deliver wave attenuation benefits similar to or greater than artificial structures designed for coastal defence such as low-crested breakwaters
. Trade-offs with other environmental considerations (for example, poor water quality in stagnant waters behind breakwaters) often require that artificial structures are designed to lower levels of effectiveness for coastal defence than is technically feasible
40.
We find that restoring reefs is significantly cheaper than building artificial breakwaters in tropical environments.
Our findings are consistent with recent analyses from the re-insurance industry on the economics of climate adaptation across eight Caribbean nations6. They examined the costs and benefits of some 20 different approaches for coastal risk reduction and adaptation from reef restoration to new building codes.
They found that reef restoration was always substantially more cost effective than breakwaters across all eight nations considering only coastal defence benefits. Moreover, reef restoration was one of the most cost effective of all approaches in seven of eight nations.¶ A full benefit:cost analysis of coastal defence alternatives that includes coral reefs is desirable but not yet possible. For reef restoration and even for breakwaters, there needs to be better accounting for benefits such as fisheries and recreation. For reef restoration, there needs to be better

accounting for maintenance costs and longer term measures of the success of restoration efforts. These measures should consider the effects of restored reef depth and roughness on wave attenuation, reef failure points during high-energy events, and the recovery time periods and costs after these events. Many gaps remain in designing reef restoration projects for hazard mitigation, as very few projects have explicitly tried to deliver benefits for both risk reduction and reef conservation
.
As living structures, reefs have the potential for self-repair and thus lower maintenance costs as compared with artificial structures, but reef restoration is still a comparatively new field
. Most measures of reef restoration projects are limited to just the time period in which a project is constructed (that is, one funding cycle) particularly in developing countries where most reef restoration occurs. The addition of ecosystem benefits and considerations of maintenance costs in a full benefit:cost analysis would likely add to the relative cost effectiveness of reefs for coastal defence.¶ Reefs face many growing pressures from development and climate change. Some scientists question their viability in future centuries41. This view has been criticized as too pessimistic42. In considering the future of reefs, it has been noted that reefs will not simply disappear, and the effects of climate change on reefs will be species and site-specific42. There will also be strong evolutionary pressure for adaptation of corals to climate change43. The resilience of coral reefs to climate change can be enhanced by removing other stressors42, 44, 45, 46, 47. Indeed, in many cases, local threats are more significant than climate change in terms of impacts to coral reefs, and these are more manageable threats (for example, blast fishing, overexploitation of grazers, pollution and sedimentation)46, 47, 48, 49. It is also important to consider that the current loss of coral reefs is lower than the loss of other coastal habitats50, 51, and reefs thus harbour significant opportunities for conservation and restoration .
¶
Coral reefs can be an effective first line of defence and these benefits are important for many nations.
Nearly 200 million people may receive risk reduction benefits from reefs or bear costs if the reefs are lost or degraded. A greater appreciation of the risk reduction benefits from reefs should help motivate the local and global actions needed to maintain and restore these ecosystems and the services they provide. The link between actions (reef structures rebuilt) and measures (wave attenuation) can be direct and timely, which is often critical for adaptation and risk reduction investments. Our analysis of existing studies suggests that restoration for hazard mitigation and adaptation would be particularly cost effective when focused along the reef crest, where the greatest wave energy reduction can be achieved
.¶ A management focus on reefs with the goal of providing risk reduction and adaptation benefits, however, will require changes in conservation and disaster risk reduction approaches. Although conservation efforts are most often directed to more remote reefs, our results suggest that there should also be a focus on reefs closer to the people who will directly benefit from reef restoration and management. Disaster risk reduction managers will also have to focus more on prevention measures such as sustainable development and environmental conservation, both are widely recognized as important and cost effective but rarely acted upon3.

RHIANNON July 11, 2014
[Meyers, Deep in Texas, investigative reporter Rhiannon Meyers is crafting extensive newspaper series, winning national awards and churning out high quality solutions journalism, Gulf dead zone should be smaller than 2013, tied to ethanol production, http://fuelfix.com/blog/2014/07/11/gulf-dead-zone-should-be-smaller-than-2013-tied-to-ethanol-production/, ]¶ SA
The
Gulf of Mexico dead zone — which scientists tie to fertilizer from Midwest agriculture including ethanol production — will be
slightly smalle r than last year’s but still about the size of Connecticut
.
¶ The dead zone occurs when nitrogen-based fertilizer washes from Corn Belt farms into the Mississippi River and winds its way south into the Gulf, providing nutrients for a bloom of algae.
When the bloom dies, it leaves oxygen-depleted water where other marine life can’t survive.
¶
An indirect link was established between the dead zone and U.S. ethanol production when, in 2012, the dead zone contracted dramatically after an extreme drought damaged corn crops.
¶
The annual dead zone typically peaks in July and August, and this year’s could stretch from South Texas to
Alabama and cover 4,600 to 5,700 square miles
, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasts.
¶
That’s on par with the 5-year average but down slightly from last year’s 5,840 square miles. NOAA had predicted a larger dead zone last year because of runoff from spring flooding in Minnesota and Illinois, but windy conditions in the Gulf helped keep it in check.
¶
The persistence of the Gulf dead zone raises concerns among some researchers that expansions of U.S. biofuel requirements could escalate harm to an area that supplies nearly onefifth of the nation’s commercial seafood.
¶
“None of this is happening intentionally,” said Larry McKinney, executive director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies. “This is all the result of unintended consequences of wellmeaning policies.” ¶ Federal law mandates that an increasing amount of renewable fuels, including ethanol – pure alcohol — be blended with gasoline as a way of reducing emissions and reliance on fossil fuels. Because most
U.S. ethanol is made from corn, the mandate has been a boon to ethanol makers and Corn Belt agriculture, contributing to the fertilizer flowing into the Mississippi watershed.
¶ The oil producing and refining industries generally oppose the biofuel mandates, as do automakers and some consumer groups that argue the increasing percentage of ethanol in fuel can damage vehicle engines.
¶ Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency, which administers the renewable fuel mandate, proposed lowering the annual volume of renewable fuel required in the nation’s fuel supply in 2014, but the agency hasn’t finalized the blending requirements.
¶ If ethanol demand increases, however, it could prompt farmers to grow corn on marginal Midwest farmland where it hasn’t grown before, requiring more fertilizer and intensifying the downstream problems,
McKinney said.
¶
Dead zones are hard to predict because they are influenced by weather.
Tropical storms and hurricanes, for example, can stir up the Gulf and add oxygen back into the water, offsetting the dead zone effects. NOAA has predicted eight to 13 storms in the Atlantic this season, including one or two major hurricanes

Warming causes Dead Zones.
McCormick Feb2011
[Mark, Associate Professor Mark McCormick of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) have recently published scientific articles which raise concern about the impact of large areas of ocean emerging which are so low in oxygen that fish and other sea life cannot survive, Concern Over Global Spread of Ocean Dead Zones, http://www.coralcoe.org.au/news_stories/fishchoke.html
, ] SA
They say hundreds of dead zones are being reported around the world in areas that have been overfished and where rich nutrient runoff from the land is causing blooms of algae which lead in turn to blooms of bacteria that strip the oxygen from the water.
¶
“
We think this problem is also linked to climate change,
” Professor Hoegh-Guldberg of CoECRS and the University of Queensland argues in a recent review article in the leading international journal Science.
¶
“Warmer oceans tend to form layers which, like stagnant ponds, are low in oxygen. Changes in wind strength and ocean currents driven by climate change affect the degree of mixing that goes on between surface and deep waters and this is changing the nutrient distribution, causing anoxic zones to form.”
¶
A total of 405 dead zones have been reported by oceanographers worldwide during the period 2000-08, compared with 300 in the 1990s and 120 in the 1980s. The number has been doubling every decade since the 1960s.
Some zones are as small as a square kilometre, while others are
¶

¶
Associate Professor Mark McCormick of
CoECRS and James Cook University says the loss of oxygen from waters in the world’s major ocean basins is one of several factors contributing to increased stress on world fish populations. “We know from our recent work that increases in stress result deformities leading to poorer survival of fish larvae.
¶
“
Low oxygen levels increase stress on fish
.
It has also been found they can cause fish to have smaller ovaries, produce fewer eggs, so larvae are also smaller and less likely to survive,”
he says.
¶ He says a large area of the central Pacific, between 200-600 metres deep, has only a tenth of its normal oxygen levels, causing profound changes to the type of sea life that can inhabit it. “
As the ocean warms it is likely this hypoxic (low oxygen) zone will move closer to the surface and spread out onto the continental shelves. This will have repercussions for both recreational and professional fisheries.”

[Mark, Mark Tercek is president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, the global conservation organization known for its intense focus on collaboration and getting things done for the benefit of people and nature., Huffington Post, Gulf 'Dead Zone' Threatens
Seafood, Tourism Industries http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-tercek/gulf-dead-zone-threatens-_b_916389.html]SA
Despite earlier predictions, scientists this week reported that the Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone" did not hit an all-time record size. But the news was nothing to celebrate.
¶ The dead zone -- an area of water where oxygen is depleted, preventing any marine life from surviving -- is now
6,765 square miles wide. That's bigger than the state of Connecticut and one of the largest dead zones ever recorded in the Gulf (the dead zone has continued to grow since measuring began in 1985).
¶ The report by Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium is just the latest evidence for the need to invest in our natural resources or risk severe consequences to our jobs, economies and communities.
¶
Scientists had predicted this year's dead zone would be the largest on record due to the historic floods this spring that washed nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus, from farm land, lawns, sewage treatment plants and other sources along the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico.
¶ If Tropical
Storm Don hadn't hit the Gulf last week, whipping up waves and wind to temporarily re-supply oxygen to the water, the dead zone would likely have broken previous records.
¶ When floods hit the Mississippi River this spring, the immediate damage was obvious -- ruined homes, inundated farm lands and disrupted businesses costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
¶ But the impacts of the floods are now being felt by even more people and communities than originally thought.
The dead zone poses a real threat to the Gulf's seafood and tourism industry which generates more than 600,000 jobs and $9 billion in wages annually
.
¶
Because fish and other commercial species usually move out to sea in order to avoid the dead zone, fishermen are forced to travel farther from land -- and spend more time and money -- to make their catches, adding stress to an industry already hurt by hurricanes and the oil spill.
¶
Those species that can't move -- or can't move fast enough -- die off, leading to the name "dead zone."
¶
The Gulf produces roughly 40 percent of all the seafood in the lower 48 states. The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration has previously estimated that the dead zone costs the U.S. seafood and tourism industries $82 million a year. The record size of this year's dead zone could be even more costly.
¶ This year's floods and the resulting dead zone remind us that our lands and waters are interconnected; damage to a natural system in one part of the country can impact communities thousands of miles away.
¶ It's an important lesson that our elected leaders should not forget in this time of cutting the Federal budget
. Investing in our nation's lands and water is a direct investment in America's communities and economy.
¶
But proposed spending bills that have been taken up by Congress over the last few months and will now be affected by the debt ceiling agreement, have included deep cuts to conservation programs that have kept our natural resources strong and productive for decades.
¶ Among the programs now in jeopardy are Farm Bill
Conservation Title provisions that encourage farmers and forest land owners to conserve and manage their land in ways that minimize soil erosion, improve water quality by reducing polluted runoff, mitigate the risks of flood damage and provide wildlife habitat.
¶
The dead zone is just one of the threats that poses financial hardship to the Gulf region -- and the nation as a whole. It has been more than a year since the oil spill disaster that poured 205 million gallons of crude into the Gulf's waters, and it is now time to take more decisive action to restore the Gulf of Mexico back to health.
¶ Legislation called the RESTORE Act has been introduced in the Senate that would dedicate 80 percent of the money that could result from oil spill fines to restoring the Gulf's communities, economies and environments. Without Congressional action, current law would have most of the money toward general government spending rather than helping the Gulf recover.
¶
This fall, a federal task force appointed by President Obama will unveil a comprehensive plan for restoring the Gulf.
Funding from potential oil spill fines is needed to ensure that plan is implemented and that we, as a nation, can work together to restore the
Gulf of Mexico
.
¶ A healthy Gulf is vital to the well-being of communities around the region and across the nation. This year's massive dead zone is just the latest challenge facing this incredible natural resource that provides us with jobs, income, food, shelter and diverse wildlife. And, as we look toward reducing the cost of government we should recognize that environmental investment should not be cut disproportionately
. The health of our land, freshwater and oceans is not a luxury -- it is a foundation for the economic and social well being of our society
.
¶

[John Rumpler, Mr. Rumpler coordinates Environment America’s state and federal work on clean water, toxics pollution, and land preservation. 206 Million Pounds of Toxic Chemicals Dumped into America’s Waterways http://www.environmentamerica.org/news/ame/206-million-pounds-toxic-chemicals-dumped-america’s-waterways] SA
From the Chesapeake Bay to the Great Lakes to the Puget Sound, industrial facilities dumped more than 206 million pounds of toxic chemicals into America’s waterways in 2012
, according to a new report by Environment America
Research and Policy Center. The “Wasting Our Waterways” report comes as the Environmental Protection Agency considers a new rule to restore Clean Water Act protections to 2 million miles of critical waterways across the nation – a move bitterly opposed by the lobbyists for corporate agribusiness, including the American Farm Bureau.
¶ “America’s waterways should be clean – for swimming, drinking, and supporting wildlife,” said Ally Fields, clean water advocate with Environment America Research and Policy Center. “But too often, our waters have become a dumping ground for polluters
. The first step to curb this tide of toxic pollution is to restore Clean Water Act protections to all our waterways.” Based on data submitted by polluting facilities themselves, the group’s report uses information from the
EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory for 2012, the most recent data available. Major findings of the report include: ¶ •
Our nation’s iconic waterways are still threatened by toxic pollution
– with polluters discharging huge volumes of chemicals into the watersheds of the Great Lakes (8.39 million pounds), the Chesapeake Bay (3.23 million pounds), the Upper Mississippi River (16.9 million pounds), and the Puget Sound (578,000 pounds) among other beloved waterways.
¶
• Tyson Foods Inc. is the parent-company reporting dumping the largest discharge of toxic chemicals into our waterways, with a total of 18,556,479 lbs – 9 percent of the nationwide total of toxic discharges. Of the top ten parent-companies by total pounds of toxics released, four are corporate agribusiness companies (Tyson Inc., Cargill
Inc., Perdue Farms Inc, and Pilgrims Pride Corp.).•
Corporate agribusiness facilities, the report also finds, were responsible for approximately one-third of all direct discharges of nitrates to our waterways, which can cause health problems in infants and contribute to “dead zones” in our waters.
For example
, pollution in the Mississippi River watershed has contributed to the massive dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico
.
Of the several steps needed to curb this tide of toxic pollution, Environment America Research and Policy Center is highlighting one piece of the solution that could become a reality this year: The EPA’s proposed rule to restore Clean Water Act protections to more than 2 million miles of streams and millions of acres of wetlands across the country.
¶
As a result of court cases brought by polluters, more than half of America’s streams and the drinking water for 117 million Americans are now at risk of having no protection from pollution under the federal Clean Water
Act. Following years of advocacy by Environment America Research and Policy Center’s and its allies, this spring, the EPA finally proposed a rule to close the loopholes that have left America’s waterways and risk and restore Clean Water Act protections.
¶
“It’s high time that we restore protections for the drinking water for 1 in 3 Americans,” said Fields. “That’s why today we are releasing this report and running an ad in Politico as part of a broad effort to educate the public and engage elected officials to weigh in with the Obama administration in support of its Clean
Water Act rulemaking.”
¶
But corporate agribusiness is vigorously opposing these critical clean water protections.
¶
“Looking at the data from our report today, you can see why polluters might oppose any efforts to better protect our waters,” said Ally Fields. “That’s why we are working with farmers, small businesses, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans to make sure our voices for clean water are heard in
Washington, D.C. The future of the waterways we love – from the Chesapeake Bay to the Colorado River – hangs in the balance.”
[TED, STEINBERG, professor of history and law at Case Western Reserve University, Can the Port Authority Save the Planet?,
NYT, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/opinion/can-the-port-authority-save-the-planet.html?_r=0 ] SA
Estuaries exist where ocean tide meets freshwater from an incoming river.
The nutrient-rich environment underwrites an enormous food supply that supports dense animal populations, from seals to frogs to wading birds
.
They have also long been attractive sites for urban development because of their prolific supply of natural resources, access to navigable water and capacity to absorb the waste produced by masses of people.
¶ During the last two centuries, urbanization has increasingly horned in on this territory. In 1800, a little more than 40 percent of the 25 largest cities in the world were situated along estuaries. Today, close to 70 percent of the planet’s largest cities are found there.
One of the main ecological impacts has been eutrophication: a decline in water quality caused by an excess of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus.
Often, those nutrients come from synthetic fertilizer, but the human waste discharged from cities, especially developing ones, remains an important factor
.
¶ In the past, those nutrients found their way back to the land. Even today in the East Kolkata wetlands of India, sewage is recycled into vegetable patches and fish farms. But this kind of “closed-loop” system is rare in modern cities wedded to real estate development rather than agriculture.
Instead, nutrients are gushing into estuaries and resulting in harmful algal blooms that rob the water of oxygen, degrade marine habitat and limit the diversity

of aquatic life.
¶
That’s what has happened in the Pearl River estuary, one of the most urbanized regions on the planet.
Nutrient-rich sewage has caused harmful algal blooms, or red tide outbreaks, including one in 1998 that resulted in
$32 million of damage to Hong Kong’s fish farms.
¶ The second main ecological impact of urban life is that it has expanded at the expense of wetlands. In New York Harbor, roughly 17,000 acres of marshland were filled in between 1953 and 1973. The region around
Dhaka, Bangladesh, with its 15 million inhabitants, lost more than half of its wetlands between 1968 and 2001.
The loss destroys the plant life and bivalves that filter polluted water on its way out of the estuary, and on which other organisms depend.
¶ And, finally, expanding into marshland and other low-lying ground has precipitated the problem of coastal flooding.
A recent report projected that, by midcentury, average flood losses in the world’s major coastal cities will rise to a stunning $52 billion as more people and property pile in along the coast.
¶ All in all, urbanization has turned wetlands into one of the world’s most threatened habitats; eutrophication has evolved into a global ecological problem as disturbing as climate change; and global warming is projected to raise the level of the sea and increase flooding.
¶
Political boundaries are of little use in dealing with these problems. It makes no sense for the City of New York to release an elaborate plan on its own — as the Bloomberg administration did after
Hurricane Sandy — to address coastal flooding within the five boroughs without paying heed to the impact of what, say, building a levee there will do with respect to floods in New Jersey.
¶ What we need are port authorities. In the Western Hemisphere there are already 137 port authorities — from New York to Buenos Aires. And other cities around the globe have similar organizations. These authorities are typically concerned with transportation infrastructure, but they can be reformed and placed in charge of overseeing development at the intersection of land and sea.
¶ If the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey can think holistically about transportation, it can certainly, with the right staffing, do the same for the environment. It has already taken some tentative steps in that direction, partnering with other agencies on localized wetlands restoration, for example. It needs to go further. Congress should merge it with the weaker but important Interstate
Environmental Commission, another innovative agency that crosses state lines in the metro area to oversee air and water quality, and elevate the organization as the estuary’s master planner.
¶
With more than half the world’s population now living in cities, and urban planners pressing for more density, we need a model of urban governance that can evaluate the effects of development on estuaries
. An improved port authority could forge the way, instead of serving as a punching bag for commuters.

WINES 4/6/13 [MICHAEL, WINES, American journalist, Florida Algae Bloom Leads to Record Manatee Deaths, NYT, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/science/earth/algae-bloom-in-florida-kills-record-number-of-manatees.html] SA
Florida’s endangered manatees
, already reeling from an unexplained string of deaths in the state’s east coast rivers, have died in record numbers from a toxic red algae bloom
that appears each year off the state’s west coast, state officials and wildlife experts say.
¶
The tide has killed 241 of Florida’s roughly 5,000 manatees
, according to the state Fish and Wildlife
Research Institute, and the toll appears certain to rise.
¶
The number of deaths from the tide far exceeds the previous annual record of 151.
Most occurred along the lower west coast of Florida near Fort Myers, where an algae bloom that began last fall was especially severe and long-lasting
.
¶ “Southwest Florida is an area where a lot of manatees are during the winter months,” Kevin Baxter, a spokesman for the research institute, said Friday. “It’s a warm-water area. The bloom has persisted there for quite a while.”
Although the algae had largely dissipated by mid-March, he said, the manatee deaths are likely to continue for a few months because remnants of the toxin still cling to sea grasses.
Manatees can eat 100 pounds of sea grass daily, said Pat Rose, an aquatic biologist and the executive director of the Save the Manatee Club in Maitland, Fla.
The state’s annual red tide affects a wide range of aquatic animals and can cause problems in people.
The algae contain a nerve poison known as brevetoxin that is not only found underwater but that is also blown through the air when waves break open the algae’s outer casing.
Manatees, birds, dolphins and other animals can be killed by consuming the poison, either by accidentally eating the algae or by ingesting small organisms clinging to sea grass that have soaked up the poison while filtering seawater
.
¶
Residents and tourists regularly have respiratory problems after inhaling brevetoxins while strolling on beaches near red tides. People can also become ill after eating oysters and clams that have absorbed the toxin.
¶
Experts are uncertain why this year’s algae bloom was so lengthy and toxic.
Phosphorus runoff from fertilized farms and lawns may have contributed, because algae thrive on a phosphorus diet.
The Caloosahatchee River, which runs through rural Florida farmland, empties into the ocean at Fort Myers.
¶ But Mr.
Rose and Dr. Martine DeWit, a veterinarian with the state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, say a major cause may be an unfortunate coincidence of weather and timing.
¶
Dr. DeWit said a mild, fairly windless winter helped the algae persist far longer than ordinary blooms, which generally die off late in the year.
That meant large blooms remained offshore when the manatees, driven by a search for warmer waters, began moving to the Fort Myers area
.
¶
Manatees are attracted there every year by a warm-water discharge from a local power plant, Dr. DeWit said.
¶
“We’ve seen in the past that when algae blooms coincide with manatee movement, it results in catastrophic mortality,” she said.
¶
The red-tide deaths come amid what is shaping up as a disastrous year for the manatee, whose numbers have slowly been growing in recent years.
So far this year, at least 463 have died from a range of causes, more deaths than had been recorded in any previous comparable period.
¶ At least 80 more manatees have been killed this year in the Indian River in east-central Florida, where a huge phytoplankton bloom in 2011 killed most of the sea grasses. The manatees there appeared outwardly healthy, but autopsies indicated that they had severe intestinal distress and that their stomachs were generally filled with a different strand of algae that they were apparently eating in the absence of the grass they normally eat.
¶
What is killing those animals is not yet known, but Dr. DeWit said it appeared to be related to the algae and could — like the west coast’s red tide — be tied to a poison.

(Steve, the Science Editor of The Independent, 13 December, 2011, The Independent, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/vast-methane-plumes-seen-in-arctic-ocean-as-sea-iceretreats-6276278.html
) JW
Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane - a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide - have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region
The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years. In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Igor Semiletov of the International Arctic Research Centre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who led the 8th joint US-Russia cruise of the East Siberian Arctic seas, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed. "Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It's amazing," Dr Semiletov said. "I was most impressed by the sheer scale and the high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them," he said.
Scientists estimate that there are hundreds of millions of tons of methane gas locked away beneath the Arctic permafrost
, which extends from the mainland into the seabed of the relatively shallow sea of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.
One of the greatest fears is that with the disappearance of the Arctic sea ice
in summer, and rapidly rising temperatures across the entire Arctic region,
which are already melting the Siberian permafrost, the trapped methane could be suddenly released into the atmosphere leading to rapid and severe climate change
. Dr Semiletov's team published a study in 2010 estimating that the methane emissions from this region were in the region of 8 million tons a year but the latest expedition suggests this is a significant underestimate of the true scale of the phenomenon. In late summer, the
Russian research vessel Academician Lavrentiev conducted an extensive survey of about 10,000 square miles of sea off the East Siberian coast, in cooperating with the University of Georgia Athens. Scientists deployed four highly sensitive instruments, both seismic and acoustic, to monitor the "fountains" or plumes of methane bubbles rising to the sea surface from beneath the seabed. "In a very small area, less than 10,000 square miles, we have counted more than 100 fountains, or torchlike structures, bubbling through the water column and injected directly into the atmosphere from the seabed," Dr Semiletov said. "We carried out checks at about
115 stationary points and discovered methane fields of a fantastic scale - I think on a scale not seen before. Some of the plumes were a kilometre or more wide and the emissions went directly into the atmosphere - the concentration was a hundred times higher than normal," he said. Dr Semiletov released his findings for the first time last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. He is now preparing the study for publication in a scientific journal. The total amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is calculated to be greater than the overall quantity of carbon locked up in global coal reserves so there is intense interest in the stability of these deposits as the polar region warms at a faster rate than other places on earth. Natalia Shakhova, a colleague at the International
Arctic Research Centre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said that the Arctic is becoming a major source of atmospheric methane and the concentrations of the powerful greenhouse gas have risen dramatically since pre-industrial times, largely due to agriculture. However, with the melting of Arctic sea ice and permafrost, the huge stores of methane that have been locked away underground for many thousands of years might be released over a relatively short period of time, Dr
Shakhova said. "I am concerned about this process, I am really concerned. But no-one can tell the timescale of catastrophic releases. There is a probability of future massive releases might occur within the decadal scale, but to be more accurate about how high that probability is, we just don't know," Dr Shakova said.
"
Methane released from the Arctic shelf deposits contributes to global increase and the best evidence for that is the higher concentration of atmospheric methane above the Arctic Ocean," she said. "The concentration of atmospheric methane increased unto three times in the past two centuries from 0.7 parts per million to 1.7ppm, and in the Arctic to 1.9ppm
. That's a huge increase, between two and three times, and this has never happened in the history of the planet
," she added. Each methane molecule is about 70 times more potent in terms of trapping heat than a molecule of carbon dioxide.
However, because methane it broken down more rapidly in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, scientist calculate that methane is about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a hundred-year cycle
.
(Fred, Fred Pearce is a science writer and has reported on the environment, popular science and development issues, Ice on fire:The next fossil fuel, http://climatestate.com/2013/08/06/methanehydrate-ice-on-fire/)
To make matters worse, the methane itself could exacerbate global warming if it starts leaking from the reserves. Rising sea temperatures could melt some undersea clathrate reserves even without extraction projects disturbing them, triggering a release of this potent greenhouse gas. A decade ago,
Peter Brewer of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, California, showed how clathrates on the seabed just off the coast of California disappeared after an El Niño event raised

ocean temperatures by 1 °C.
Exploitation of clathrates reserves might exacerbate this problem, but it could also have far more immediate adverse effects.
Clathrates exist in a delicate balance, and the worry is that as gas is extracted its pressure will break up neighbouring clathrate crystals. The result could be an uncontrollable chain reaction – a “methane burp” that could cascade through undersea reserves, triggering landslips and even tsunamis. “Extraction increases the risk of large-scale collapses, which might have catastrophic consequences,”
says Geir Erlsand from the University of Bergen in Norway.
Evidence that such events have happened in the past comes from the Storegga slide, a landslip on the seabed off western Norway about 8000 years ago.
A 400-kilometre stretch of submarine cliff on the edge of the continental shelf collapsed into the deep ocean, taking with it a staggering 3500 cubic kilometres of sediment that spread across an area the size of Scotland
. The result would have been a tsunami comparable to the one that devastated parts of south-east Asia in 2004
. The naval researchers who first discovered the remains of the slide in 1979 assumed it was the result of an earthquake. Perhaps it was initially, but Jürgen Mienert of the
University of Tromsø in Norway has found that the slumped area was also a hotspot for methane clathrates. The sheer number of cracks and giant pockmarks on the seabed, carbon-dated to the time of the slide, suggest billions of tonnes of methane must have burst out of the cliff along with the sediment, a possible trigger for the landslip. The resulting explosions would have turned even a minor slip into a major disaster.
The Storegga slide is not the only incident of this kind.
The ocean floor from Storegga to Svalbard is full of pockmarks that might have been caused by similar clathrate-driven landslides, says Mienert. He says we will see more of these events in the future. “

(Richard, Harris covered climate change for decades. He reported from the United Nations climate negotiations, starting with the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, Jan 26, 2010, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122638800)
Since methane is the main ingredient of natural gas, efforts to capture it can actually pay for themselves. You use the gas for energy
. And Shindell says there are other benefits of controlling methane.
Methane contributes to ozone, which costs society real money because of its human health effects, and ozone also damages crops. "So if you account for all the economics, all the gains that you get through the benefits of controlling methane that aren't even related to climate, you find that many of the reductions you could make actually pay for themselves
," Shindell says. Even so, there's relatively little effort now to control methane. Mohamed El-Ashry at the United Nations Foundation says part of the reason has been a fear by governments and advocates that attacking methane would be a dangerous distraction. "
People are worried about diverting attention away from carbon dioxide
," he says. "
But that shouldn't really be the case at all
." Restart Methane Projects Both problems need to be solved sooner or later. But global methane projects practically ground to a halt last year. El-Ashry says that was partly because of uncertainty over the outcome of the global warming talks in Copenhagen, and partly because of the global financial crisis. Credit wasn't available to finance methane projects, even though they were ready to go. El-Ashry is part of a group advocating for a new $200 million fund to help jump-start these methane programs again. "Here is an opportunity to have an immediate effect in terms of impacts, particularly on the Arctic, and secondary impacts, like on health," he says. And the good thing about methane is that it stays in the air for only about a decade, so if you can reduce emissions, you can see quick results.

(Fred, Fred Pearce is a science writer and has reported on the environment, popular science and development issues, Ice on fire:The next fossil fuel, http://climatestate.com/2013/08/06/methanehydrate-ice-on-fire/)
Methane is a particularly strong greenhouse gas, being ten times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Increasing evidence points to the periodic massive release of methane into the atmosphere over geological timescales. However, whether such enormous releases of methane are a cause or an effect with respect to global climate chnages remains the subject of much debate.
Global warming may cause hydrate destabilsation and gas release through a rise in ocean bottom water temperatures
.
Methane release in turn would be expected to accelerate warming, causing further dissociation, potentially resulting in run away global warming. However, coversely, sea level rise during warm periods may act to stabilise hydrates by increasing hydrostatic pressure, acting as a check on warming.
A further possiblity is that hydrate dissociaton may act as a check on glaciation, whereby reduced sea levels (due to the growth of ice sheets) may cause seafloor hydrate dissociation, releasing methane and warming the climate.
The strong link between naturally occurring gas hydrates and the Earth’s climate is an increasingly recognised phenomenon.

Yu Sun- Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Impact Assessment Magazine, July 16, 2014 (Yu Sun, Overfishing and
Pollution Pushing Ocean System to Collapse: A Rescue Package for the Global Ocean Launched, http://thewip.net/2014/07/17/overfishing-andpollution-pushing-ocean-system-to-collapse-a-rescue-package-for-the-global-ocean-launched/#respond ; TMY)
“The estimates of illegal
, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing including on EEZs is worth between US$10 and
US$23.5 billion annually
. Over 80% of marine pollution comes from land-based activities, including plastics, fertilizers, garbage, and other hazardous substances.Ӧ
This is the conclusion of the proposals entitled From Decline to Recovery: A Rescue Package for the
Global Ocean which put forwarded by the Global Ocean Commission on June 24th.
¶
Report calls on stimulating high sea recovery cycle
¶ According to the Commission report, there are five key drivers of ocean decline, namely rising demand for resources, technological advances, decline of fish stocks, climate change, biodiversity and habitat loss, and weak high seas governance.
¶
The ocean covers nearly three-quarters of the surface area of our planet ， and comprises 1.3 billion km
3
of water. The livelihoods of
12 per cent of the world’s population depend on the fishing sector
. On average,
17 per cent of global animal protein intake comes from fisheries and aquaculture
.
Ocean fisheries and aquaculture provide food for billions of people as well as livelihoods for millions
.¶ While our ocean
is supplying various resources to human being, it is facing a cycle of declining ecosystem health and productivity
.
Habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, overfishing, pollution, climate change and ocean acidification
are push ing the ocean
system to the point of collapse.
How to conserve oceanic eco-systems as well as maintain sustainable usage of oceanic resources for the current and future generations, is a major task for ocean economy.¶ To shift from continued decline to a cycle of recovery and urge nations to effectively protect ocean resources, the report put forward a package of proposals. These proposals include: ensure that all fish stocks are being fished sustainably, protect vulnerable marine areas, reduce biodiversity loss, eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and reduce by
50% quantities of plastic debris entering the marine environment.¶ The report calls on ending illegal, unreported and unregulated(IUU) fishing and improving tracking capacity of fishing on the high seas.
As the world’s single largest ecosystem, high seas ecosystems are estimated to be responsible for nearly half of the biological productivity of the entire ocean and play a central role in supporting all life on Earth. Nearly 10 million tonnes of fish are caught annually on the high seas, constituting over 12% of the global annual average marine fisheries catch of 80 million tonnes
. The ecosystems of the high seas do not exist in isolation; they are the ecological hub of the entire marine ecosystem
. The health of the high seas affects the whole global ocean
.¶
Experts suggest on sustainable oceanic fishing
¶ ‘The major problems of oceanic fishery are less target fish net usage, imbalanced fish catch species structure, low cost utilization on nature resources, and insufficient fishery management’, Associate Professor Wang Yamin from Shandong University said in China Fisheries Forum held in June in Hong Kong.
‘Besides, marine pollution comes from aquaculture and other land-based activities seriously threaten coastal waters environment and marine biodiversity.’¶ Ocean is flowing, and extensively conducting international co-operation is an important measure of protecting
China’s and global oceanic biodiversity
.¶ Professor Xue Guifang from Shanghai Jiao Tong University suggests that all related parties and organizations should take steps to control and reduce land-based pollution, and improve China’s off-shore marine environment, so as to ensure long-term sustainability, so as to meet the needs of current and future generations.¶ As an early country imposing environmental impact assessment, most aquaculture actions have to pass EIA before getting aquaculture permit in Australia.¶ Dr. Michael Fabinyi from James Cook University,
Australia, recommended that China draw on Australian experience of aquaculture admittance mechanism, set up environmental monitoring mechanism and aquaculture ecological safety assessment mechanism, establish scientific aquaculture zoning areas, and strengthen aquaculture management.¶ To effectively protect marine ecological environment, Wang Yamin suggested distinguishing traditional fishing and commercial fishing, implementing total fishing quota system (TAC), and levying fishing tax or environmental tax.¶

Walker 7/17/14-
Robert Walker, President at the Population Institute, (Robert Walker, Food, population and the post-2015 development agenda, https://www.devex.com/news/food-population-and-the-post-2015-development-agenda-83892 ; TMY)
Meeting the growing demand for food may be the world’s single greatest challenge,
but it is part of a much larger complex of problems, all relating to the overuse of our planet
and, ultimately, to the larger challenge posed by population growth.
¶ Addressing that challenge is both a moral and a global imperative. That’s why earlier this month, the Population Institute unveiled “ Population by the Numbers ,” a series of compelling factoids focusing on population and its implications for economic and human development.
¶
As the United Nations prepares for its General Assembly in September, many questions remain about the new global development agenda that is emerging from high-level negotiations among world leaders.
For the past 14 years, the Millennium Development Goals have played a leading role in shaping the international development agenda. But the MDGs expire at the end of next year and progress toward a post-2015 agenda has been kept tightly under wraps.
¶ See more ¶ For the past two years, work on the post-2015 development agenda has proceeded on two parallel tracks, one focused on an extension of the
MDGs in some form and the other on a set of sustainable development goals that are meant to be global. A common expectation has always been that the two tracks would converge at some point. That hope is now crystalizing, and it appears increasingly likely that the United Nations will meld the two processes together in the course of the next year.
¶ Convergence, of course, makes eminent sense. What lasting good is development if it’s not sustainable? And there are plenty of reasons to question whether the current development path is sustainable. The warning signs are all around us.
Greenhouse gas emissions are rising relentlessly even as the indicators of climate change become more pronounced
.
Water tables in many areas are falling while rivers and lakes are shrinking.
Deserts in
Asia and Africa are expanding while tropical forests in Southeast Asia are being chopped down to accommodate the world’s demand for hardwoods and palm oil
.
¶
Food security is a growing concern as the number of chronically hungry
in Africa show s no real sign of abating and food prices persist near historical peaks
. Commodity prices for energy, metals and minerals remain stubbornly high as demand for resources and the costs of extraction continue to rise.
Ocean fisheries are still collapsing and the very chemistry of the oceans themselves is changing. And, despite international efforts, the rate of biodiversity loss remains high, and scientists now warn of a Sixth Mass Extinction.
¶
If sustainability is the great unmet challenge of the 21st century, and it certainly appears so, we must renew the international community’s commitment to universal access to family planning and reproductive health services
, as presently enshrined in MDG 5b. If the gains made in meeting the other MDG targets are to be preserved and built upon, girls and women must be able, free from coercion, to space and limit their pregnancies. That requires more than improved access to contraceptives; we must also dismantle the informational and cultural barriers to reproductive choice, including misinformation about the dangers of contraceptive use, and male and religious opposition to family planning.
¶ On July 11, the world observed the 25th anniversary of World Population Day. In the past quarter century, the world’s fertility rate has fallen from 3.3 children per woman to 2.5 children, but the world population during that same period increased by 2 billion, and, if fertility rates were to remain constant, world population would grow from 7.2 billion today to an estimated 27 billion by the end of the century.
¶ Fortunately, demographers believe that fertility rates will continue to fall. The general consensus is that world population will rise to about 9.5 billion by mid-century and to about 11 billion by the end of the century. Even that projected growth path, however, is not sustainable.
The Global
Footprint Network estimates that we are already overusing the world’s renewable resources by 50 percent and that by 2030, we will need two Earths to sustain us in the long haul
.
¶ Continued progress in eliminating severe poverty and hunger will be in severe jeopardy unless we also pay more attention to resource constraints, biophysical capacity and planetary limits. As part of the SDGs, every country should undertake a realistic assessment of the growing demand for, and the shrinking availability of, resources such as water, arable land and forests. Just as no one would think of driving a car or flying a plane without a fuel gauge, national planners need to have a clearer understanding of the physical limits to growth.
¶ !
¶ We once grew or farmed enough to feed our families. Today most of us are net buyers of food. How can we better link food producers and consumers to ensure nutritious food for all?
¶ In the past half century, numerous countries cashed in their “demographic dividend” and prospered as smaller families boosted private savings and improved the worker/dependency ratio. Now, taking into account resource scarcity and the effects of climate change, the benefits of smaller families are greater than ever. Family planning improves the health, wellbeing and resilience of families, their communities and their countries.
¶ Looking ahead, there are many development challenges, but ensuring that women can space or limit their pregnancies is not just a moral imperative, it’s a global imperative.
¶

[John McKenzie a writer for abc news February 28 2014 “finding cure for cancer in oceans” http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131217&page=2]
of potential medicine lies in the sponges, algae and coral that live beneath the sea.
doctors think some
may even help cure cancer.
¶
these marine organisms contain toxic chemicals to keep predators at bay,
discovering these unique chemicals can also attack human cancer cells.
¶
"These compounds are extremely strong in a drug sense," says the institute's David Newman.
¶
the most promising is a compound found in moss-like creatures called bryozoans.
¶
We do think this is the beginning of a new development in cancer therapy."
¶
¶
Bryostatin, a drug developed from the bryozoan, has been showing encouraging results in several early clinical trials, especially in combination with chemotherapy drugs.
¶
Louis
Piaroulli
his cancer was spreading through his bones and lymph nodes. Traditional chemotherapy had failed. Then, doctors tried again with the same chemotherapy drug, but they added bryostatin.
¶
Before adding bryostatin, Piaroulli's bones were riddled with cancer. Five months after the treatment, there was no trace of the disease.
¶
¶
¶
They're also combining it with different chemotherapy drugs and trying to identify which cancers might best respond to this therapy.

[James Owens is a writer for national geographic “Overfishing is Emptying World's Rivers, Lakes, Experts Warn” http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1201_051201_overfishing_2.html]
Ocean species such as cod, dolphins, and sea turtles have been grabbing headlines as victims of unsustainable fishing.
¶ But policymakers and the media are neglecting freshwater rivers and lakes that are also being emptied of fish, a new report warns.
¶
Scientists say exploitation of fish stocks is threatening biodiversity in fresh waters globally while also putting jobs and food supplies in developing nations at risk
.
¶ "Overfishing of inland waters is a neglected crisis," said the report's co-author Kirk Winemiller, a fish researcher at the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station in
College Station..
¶ Fourfold Increase ¶
The report reveals that humans are fishing their way through differentsize fish, starting with the largest, then targeting progressively smaller species until there's nothing left to catch.
¶ "Tens of millions of people in developing countries fish inland waters for food and to earn a living," Winemiller said.
"
Typically fishing pressure shifts from species to species as preferred types or those more easily captured decline in number
." ¶ The authors say overall harvest from the world's lakes and rivers has quadrupled since 1950.
The current catch is estimated at around 8.5 tons (8.7 million metric tons) annually. That figure doesn't include fish taken by anglers, which often go unrecorded.
¶ Two-thirds of the total catch is taken in Asia, with China alone home to some 12 million fishermen.
¶
Average yearly fish consumption in the Mekong Basin in Southeast Asia is estimated at 123 pounds
(56 kilograms) per person. Items on the menu include some of world's largest and rarest
river fish
, including the Mekong giant catfish, freshwater whipray, and giant barb.
¶ Zeb Hogan, a fish biologist at the University of Wisconsin at
Madison and a National Geographic Society emerging explorer, has been collecting data on these fish in Cambodia and Thailand.
¶
Hogan says catches of the legendary Mekong giant catfish, which can grow to 660 pounds (300 kilograms) and 9 feet (2.7 meters) in length, have fallen drastically in recent years —from 60 in 1995 to just 4 in 2005.
¶ "There may be a season soon when no fish are caught," he said.
¶ The researcher says there is currently no comprehensive conservation strategy to save these fish from extinction.
¶ He says priorities should include sustainable catch limits for rare Mekong species and the creation of freshwater protected areas.
¶ "Environmental education is also very important," Hogan added. "Few people know about the endangered animals of the Mekong or how important fish are to the livelihoods of people living within the basin.
¶ "Had a coordinated effort been undertaken a decade ago, the situation would not be so dire." ¶ Diminishing Returns ¶
The report says big fish are particularly vulnerable to being captured in nets, and the global trend in overfished waters is towards fish of ever diminishing size.
¶ "Large adult fish are the broodstock that sustains the population," said David Allan, lead author of the report and a conservation biology professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
¶ "[Fertility] increases with body size, so large females are especially important reproductively." ¶ And as populations of bigger fish dwindle, smaller species take their place. The Queme River in Benin, West Africa, has seen large predatory fish like the
Nile perch replaced by small species of cichlids and catfish.
¶ Allan says fishermen lower their targets accordingly to fill their nets, using smaller mesh sizes to catch the fish that are available.
¶
Depleted fish stocks can have serious repercussions
on freshwater ecosystems. The researchers point to the example of waters in western Canada and Alaska where the rotting bodies of Pacific salmon, which die after breeding, provide vital nutrients.
¶ "As salmon populations have decreased because of overfishing and other causes, declines have also occurred in lake productivity and juvenile salmon recruitment," the authors state.
¶ They also warn that overfishing has the potential for severe impacts on human health,

especially in developing nations.
¶ For example, increased incidence of schistosomiasis in Africa has been linked to declines of fish species that eat the snails carrying the disease-causing parasites.
Overfishing takes place when the fish are captured at a faster rate than they are able to reproduce
.
Today,
90 percent of the sea species at the top position in the marine ecosystems food chain or biggest predators, such as tuna, cod, sword fish and sharks have practically been eliminated or are in a situation of critical decline.
¶ The result is an unstable ecosystem that involves the reorganisation of the seas ecosystems with unknown consequences of the oceans balance.
Scientists estimate that if overfishing continues at this rate, certain fish will have become extinct by the year 2048.
¶ Nowadays, between 50 and 70 percent of the biggest predators like the sword fish are being captured below the approved minimum size
and at least one third are captured illegally
worldwide
. Bluefin tuna is at the brink of extinction with a population which makes their recovery practically irreversible
, reminiscent of what has already happened to cod in the east coast of Canada in the 1990’s.
Some countries believe that bluefin tuna, once the most common and popular species in the world, should be listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, CITES
.
This proposal was recently rejected by the Mediterranean countries, amongst which includes Spain.
¶ With the disappearance of the majority of the ocean’s main predators and the loss of their habitat, not only are we changing the relative balance of the ocean but also altering the evolutionary process of its species, forcing cycles of premature reproduction and contributing to the decrease in size of the individual fish.
¶ But that isn’t all.
¶
As the biggest predators diminish, the population of smaller fish such as sardines, pollack, mackerel, squid and anchovies escalates
, that is, the food which the larger fish have always lived off.
Currently, tones of these small fish are being captured and supplied to fish farms and about 7 out of the 10 biggest fisheries
¶ - See more at: http://www.oceansentry.org/en/2557-sobrepesca-muerte-de-los-oceanos.html#sthash.78M9aGzy.dpuf

Overfishing causes Great 6 th Extinction
Good 6/25/14-
Kate Good, Writer and Environmental Enthusiast with a B.A in English from Dickinson College. (The Sixth Massive Extinction is Imminent. Here’s How We Can Stop
It!, http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/the-sixth-massive-extinction-is-imminent-heres-how-we-can-stop-it/ ; TMY)
It’s no secret that deforestation, climate change, and habitat degradation is rapidly endangering plant and animal species around the world.
But what you might not know is how incredibly quickly these species are disappearing right before our eyes.
¶
According to a report from scientists at U niversity of C alifornia, Berkeley
, we are on the brink of facing the sixth great extinction on Earth
— a n episode of mass extinction where 75 percent of the species on the planet vanish within a short
(geologically speaking) period of time
. So how much time are we talking here? Approximately 3 to
22 centuries, so there is some time left, relatively speaking.
¶ But that doesn’t mean we have time to drag our feet on this one… It is estimated that the IUCN Red List of Threatened and Endangered Species has catalogued less than 2.7 percent of the 1.9 million named species present on Earth. Which could mean a species reaches extinction before we can even document that it is being threatened. Yikes.
¶
However, the cause of these extinctions is no mystery. We know what is driving this rapid decline of species. Biodiversity loss due to climate change, habitat loss, pollution, and overfishing, tops the list as the main culprits of the impending extinction, all causes initiated by human industry
.
¶ The scientists who authored the study do not view this as an indefinite death sentence for 75 percent of the world’s species,
however, they see it as an opportunity for humans to take action.
If we mobilize now, cut dependence on fossil fuels, and commit to conservation efforts,
then we can turn this sinking ship around
.
¶ On a personal level, there are simple, practical things you can do to help prevent this from happening. One of the best ways to reduce your impact on the planet is to cut meat out of your diet , 22 percent of global carbon emissions come from meat production. If you’re not ready to commit 100 percent, try skipping meat a few times a week.
¶ Another great thing you can do to help stop deforestation is to stop buying products that contain palm oil. Everyday, 300 football fields of forest are clear cut in the rainforest of the world to make way for palm oil plantations. Check out this article to learn more about palm oil in the products you buy and read this piece for simple alternatives .
¶
Overfishing for commercial fish production is a massive issue that could be easily solved if more sections of the world’s oceans were designated as marine reserves.
While President Obama did just designate a massive section of the Pacific Ocean as a marine reserve, a more immediate way to mitigate the damaging effects of overfishing is to outlaw inefficient fishing equipment, such as trawl and gill nets. Check out the Stop the Trawler campaign to learn more. One change you can make right now to help end overfishing is to stop eating seafood. Check out these awesome recipes for vegan seafood recipes.
¶ Most importantly, one of the best ways to combat species extinction is to spread the word! Education is a powerful tool. If more people knew what was at stake, then maybe they would be more apt to change their ways.

[Jeremy Jackson is a marine ecologist, paleontologist and a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in
La Jolla, California as well as a Senior Scientist Emeritus at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, “Historical
Overfishing and the Recent Collapse of Coa
¶ stal Ecosystems,” Science, Vol. 293, July 27, 2001,http:/
¶
/www.sciencemag.org/content/293/5530/629.full]
The second important corollary is that overfishing may often be a necessary precondition for eutrophication, outbreaks of disease, or species introductions to occur
( 27 ). For example, eutrophication and hypoxia did not occur in Chesapeake Bay until the 1930s, nearly two centuries after clearing of land for agriculture greatly increased runoff of sediments and nutrients into the estuary ( 77 ).
Suspension feeding by still enormous populations of oysters was sufficient to remove most of the increased production of phytoplankton and enhanced turbidity until mechanical harvesting progressively decimated oyster beds from the 1870s to the 1920 s ( 77 , 80 ) ( Fig.
2 C).
¶
The consequences of overfishing for outbreaks of disease in the next lower trophic level fall into two categories.
The most straightforward is that populations in the lower level become so dense that they are much more susceptible to disease as a result of greatly increased rates of transmission
( 94 ).
This was presumably the case for the sea urchin
Diadema on Caribbean reefs
and the seagrass Thalassia in Florida
Bay. In contrast, among oysters disease did not become important in Chesapeake Bay until oysters had been reduced to a few percent of their original abundance
( 80 ), a pattern repeated in Pamlico Sound ( 86 , 87 ) and
Foveaux Strait, New Zealand ( 93 ).
Two factors may be responsible. First, oysters may have become less fit owing to stresses like hypoxia or sedimentation
, making them less resistant to disease ( 87 ). Alternatively, suspension feeding by dense populations of oysters and associated species on oyster reefs may have indirectly limited populations of pathogens by favoring other plankton —an explanation that may extend to blooms of toxic plankton and most other outbreaks of microbial populations
( 88 ).

[Kevin Storr, Director of Communications, UAB School of Health Professions at The University of Alabama at Birmingham,
Leatherback sea turtle could be extinct within 20 years at last stronghold in the Pacific Ocean, Science Daily, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130226141233.htm] SA
An international team led by the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has documented a 78 percent decline in the number of nests of the critically endangered leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) at the turtle's last stronghold in the Pacific Ocean.
¶
The study, published online Feb. 26 in the Ecological Society of America's scientific online journal Ecosphere, reveals leatherback nests at
Jamursba Medi Beach in Papua Barat, Indonesia -- which accounts for 75 percent of the total leatherback nesting in the western Pacific -- have fallen from a peak of 14,455 in 1984 to a low of
1,532 in 2011. Less than 500 leatherbacks now nest at this site annually.
¶ Thane Wibbels, Ph.D., a professor of reproductive biology at UAB and member of a research team that includes scientists from State University of Papua (UNIPA), the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Marine Fisheries Service and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indonesia, says the largest marine turtle in the world could soon vanish.
¶ "
If the decline continues, within 20 years it will be difficult if not impossible for the leatherback to avoid extinction
," said Wibbels, who has studied marine turtles since 1980. "
That means the number of turtles would be so low that the species could not make a comeback.
¶ "
The leatherback is one of the most intriguing animals in nature, and we are watching it head towards extinction in front of our eyes,"
added Wibbels.
¶ Leatherback turtles can grow to six feet long and weigh as much as 2,000 pounds. They are able to dive to depths of nearly 4,000 feet and can make trans-Pacific migrations from Indonesia to the U.S.
Pacific coast and back again.
¶ While it is hard to imagine that a turtle so large and so durable can be on the verge of extinction, Ricardo
Tapilatu, the research team's lead scientist who is a Ph.D. student and Fulbright Scholar in the UAB Department of Biology, points to the leatherback's
trans-Pacific migration, where they face the prevalent danger of being caught and killed in fisheries.
¶
"They can migrate more than 7,000 miles and travel through the territory of at least 20 countries, so this is a complex international problem," Tapilatu said. "It is extremely difficult to comprehensively enforce fishing regulations throughout the Pacific."
¶
The team, along with paper co-author Peter Dutton, Ph.D., discovered thousands of nests laid during the boreal winter just a few kilometers away from the known nesting sites, but their excitement was short-lived.
¶ "We were optimistic for this population when year round nesting was discovered in Wermon Beach, but we now have found out that nesting on that beach appears to be declining at a similar rate as Jamursba
Medi," said Dutton, head of the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center's Marine Turtle Genetics Program.
¶ The study has used year-round surveys of leatherback turtle nesting areas since 2005, and it is the most extensive research on the species to date.
The team identified four major problems facing leatherback turtles: nesting beach predators, such as pigs and dogs that were introduced to the island and eat the turtle eggs; rising sand temperatures that can kill the eggs or prevent the production of male hatchlings; the danger of being caught by fisheries during migrations; and harvesting of adults and eggs for food by islanders.
¶
Tapilatu, a native of western Papua, Indonesia, has studied leatherback turtles and worked on their conservation since 2004. His efforts have been recognized by NOAA, and he will head the leatherback conservation program in Indonesia once he earns his doctorate from UAB and returns to Papua.
¶ He has worked to educate locals and limit the harvesting of adults and eggs. His primary focus today is protecting the nesting females, eggs and hatchlings. A leatherback lays up to 10 nests each season, more than any other turtle species. Tapilatu is designing ways to optimize egg survival and hatchling production by limiting their exposure to predators and heat through an extensive beach management program.
¶
"If we relocate the nests from the warmest portion of the beach to our egg hatcheries, and build shades for nests in other warm areas, then we will increase hatching success to 80 percent or more
," said Tapilatu.
¶
"The international effort has attempted to develop a science-based nesting beach management plan by evaluating and addressing the factors that affect hatching success such as high sand temperatures, erosion, feral pig predation and relocating nests to maximize hatchling output
," said Manjula Tiwari, a researcher at NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, Calif.
¶ Wibbels, who is also the Ph.D. advisor for Tapilatu, says that optimizing hatchling production is a key component to leatherback survival
, especially considering the limited number of hatchlings who survive to adulthood.
¶
"Only one hatchling out of 1,000 makes it to adulthood, so taking out an adult makes a significant difference on the population
," Wibbels said. "It is essentially the same as killing 1,000 hatchlings."
¶
The research team believes that beach management will help to decrease the annual decline in the number of leatherback nests, but protection of the leatherbacks in waters throughout the Pacific is a prerequisite for their survival and recovery. Despite their prediction for leatherback extinction, the scientists are hopeful this species could begin rebounding over the next 20 years if effective management strategies are implemented.

[John Roach, graduated from Middlebury College with a B.A. in American Literature and a teaching certificate contributes to
National Geographic News, MSNBC.com, MSN, and SwitchYard Media, Leatherback Turtles Near Extinction, Experts Say, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0224_030224_seaturtles.html ] SA
They are the longest-living marine species to ever ply the world's oceans. They survived catastrophic asteroid impacts and outlived the dinosaurs.
But the leatherback sea turtle, the largest turtle in the world, is on the brink of extinction, and scientists question whether the animal will survive into the next decade.
¶ "
Over the last 22 years their numbers have declined in excess of 95 percent,
" said Larry Crowder, a marine scientist at Duke University in Durham, North
Carolina. Crowder detailed the plight of the turtle during last week's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science in Denver, Colorado.
¶
Leatherback turtles roam tropical and sub-tropical waters of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. They are found as far north as the British Isles to as far south as Australia. The turtles grow as large as nine feet (2.7 meters) long, six feet (1.8 meters) wide and weigh over 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms). Leatherback turtles are covered in a namesake rubbery shell and can dive 4,922 feet (1,500 meters) deep in search of soft-bodied prey like jellyfish.
¶
Leatherback sea turtles have lived for 150 million years.
If the species is allowed to vanish, scientists believe it will foreshadow the extinction of a host of other marine species
. Scientists estimate there are less than 5,000 nesting female leatherbacks in the Pacific Ocean today, down from 91,000 in 1980.
¶
Crowder has joined more than 400 international scientists—including marine biologist and National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence
Sylvia Earle—in calling on the United Nations to issue a moratorium on destructive fishing practices in order to save the turtle.
¶
"
Recent studies warn that unless immediate and significant steps are taken, the world's largest and most wide-ranging sea turtle will soon become extinct,
" signatory scientists said in a statement issued last week in advance of a meeting by UN's Food and Agriculture Organization's Committee on Fisheries which begins today in Rome, Italy.
¶
Leatherback sea turtle populations have been decimated by a fishing technique known as longlining
, in which fishing vessels lay out 40- to 60-mile-long (64- to 97-kilometer) lines of vertically hanging baited hooks.
¶ "An individual vessel will put out 3,000 hooks at a time. It is a curtain of baited hooks," said Todd Steiner, director of the Save the Leatherback Campaign for the Sea Turtle Restoration Project in
San Francisco, California.
¶
Leatherback sea turtles get caught up and tangled in these hooks, causing them to drown
. Scientists are uncertain as to what attracts the leatherbacks to the hooks, which are used primarily to catch swordfish and tuna.
¶
According to a recent study conducted by the Pew Charitable Trusts (a non-profit philanthropic organization based in Washington, D.C. and
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), longline fishing fleets set on the order of 1.5 billion baited hooks in the world's oceans each year. "That's 4.5 million hooks per night," said Crowder. A number, he adds, which is too high to sustain.
¶
To help remedy this problem, U.S. longline fisheries already have been restricted or closed in areas where leatherback sea turtles are known to swim. But scientists believe that this will not be enough to save the leatherbacks from extinction.
[Worldwildlife, LEATHERBACK TURTLE ,http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/leatherback-turtle] SA
Marine turtles
are the living representatives of a group of reptiles that has existed on Earth and travelled our seas for the last 100 million years. They are a fundamental link in marine ecosystems
.
Leatherback turtles consume large numbers of jellyfish which helps to keep populations of these marine organisms in check. Marine turtles, including leatherbacks, also provide a vital source of income as a draw for ecotourism in coastal communities, especially in the Coral Triangle.

(Douglas P. Nowacek is the Repass-Rodgers chair of marine conservation technology in the Nicholas School of the Environment and the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University. Jan 11,
2013 http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/01/10/did-we-save-the-whales-19/globalwarming-affects-whales-in-the-short-and-long-terms ) JW
One of the most complex changes facing whales right now is global warming. We are only just beginning to see how climate change may be linked to the health of whales. A group of orcas was trapped in ice this week in Hudson Bay, which remained open late this year because of unusually warm weather.
Marina Lacasse via The Canadian Press, via Associated Press As part of our research program along the Western Antarctic Peninsula, in
2009 my colleagues and I found a super-aggregation of humpback whales and krill: two million tons of krill and about 500 whales!
As the ice recedes in this area, which is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet, huge amounts of krill are exposed. This would appear to be good news for the humpbacks, which do not venture under the ice.
But the benefit may be only in the short term. These whales rely almost completely on krill, whose life cycle is dependent on the sea ice. Assuming the warming trends continue and the krill keep losing habitat, the humpbacks’ years of feasting could be followed by dwindling supplies of krill. Another example of warming’s effects on whales comes from the opposite side of the globe, where bowhead whales feed in the open waters of the Arctic Ocean. Again, the melting ice might appear to benefit the whales in the immediate future, but the shrinking ice cover is altering the Arctic ecosystem, from phytoplankton right up the food chain. It also invites a greater human presence, like oil exploration and shipping. The result is unclear, but it won’t be the status quo. One worldwide change that will affect marine mammals is ocean acidification, a product of carbon emissions. This chemical change directly affects the way sound behaves in the ocean, and whales and dolphins use sound as a primary sense
. Again, we don’t know the ultimate effects on marine life. Although whales may be safer from whaling now than they were when the “save the whales” campaign began, climate changes are altering their ecosystems. We don’t know yet whether those threats will be more dangerous than a harpoon.
.
("Whales In Hot Water: Global Warming's Effect On World's Largest Creatures." ScienceDaily.
ScienceDaily, 23 May 2007. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070522125023.htm>.)
The report "Whales in hot water?" examines the impacts on cetaceans including: Changes in sea temperature Declining salinity because of the melting of ice and increased rainfall Sea level rise Loss of icy polar habitats Decline of krill populations in key areas
. Krill is a tiny shrimp-like marine animal that is dependent on sea ice and is the main source of food for many of the great whales. “
Whales, dolphins and porpoises have some capacity to adapt to their changing environment,
” said Mark Simmonds, International Director of Science at WCDS. “
But the climate is now changing at such a fast pace that it is unclear to what extent whales and dolphins will be able to adjust, and we believe many populations to be very vulnerable to predicted changes.” Climate change impacts are currently greatest in the Arctic and the Antarctic. According to the report, cetaceans that rely on polar, icy waters for their habitat and food resources – such as belugas, narwhal, and bowhead whales
– are likely to be dramatically affected by the reduction of sea ice cover
. As sea ice cover decreases there will be more human activities such as commercial shipping, oil, gas and mining exploration and development, and military activities in previously untouched areas of the Arctic.
“This will result in much greater risks from oil and chemical spills, worse acoustic disturbance and more collisions between whales and ships,” said the lead author of the report, Wendy Elliott, from WWF’s Global Species Program. Other projected impacts of climate change listed in the report include: reduction of available habitat for several cetacean species unable to move into colder waters (e.g. river dolphins), the acidification of the oceans as they absorb growing quantities of CO2, an increased susceptibility of cetaceans to diseases, and reduced reproductive success, body condition and survival rates.
Climate change could also be the nail in the coffin for the last 300 or so endangered North Atlantic right whales, as the survival of their calves has been directly related to the effects of climate variability on prey abundance
. WCDS and
WWF are urging governments to cut CO2 global emissions by at least 50 percent by the middle of this century. The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change showed it was possible to stop global warming if the world’s emissions start to decline before 2015. The two conservation organizations further call on the International Whaling Commission to facilitate research on future impacts of climate change on cetaceans, including supporting a special climate change workshop in the coming year, elaborate conservation and management plans in light of the climate change threat, and increase efforts and resources to fight other threats to cetaceans.
[Douglas P. Nowacek, Marine Lab Division of Marine Science & Conservation PhD, Joint Program: Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Repass-Rodgers University Associate Professor of Conservation Technology, and
Associate Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Global Warming Affects Whales in the Short and Long Terms , http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/01/10/did-we-save-the-whales-19/global-warming-affects-whales-in-theshort-and-long-terms] SA
One of the most complex changes facing whales right now is global warming.
We are only just beginning to see how climate change may be linked to the health of whales.
¶
A group of orcas was trapped in ice this week in Hudson Bay, which remained open late this year because of unusually warm weather.Marina Lacasse via The Canadian Press, via Associated Press
¶
As part of our research program along the Western Antarctic Peninsula, in 2009 my colleagues and I found a super-aggregation of humpback whales and krill: two million tons of krill and about 500 whales!
As the ice recedes in this area, which is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet, huge amounts of krill are exposed.
This would appear to be good news for the humpbacks, which do not venture under the ice. But the benefit may be only in the short term.
These whales rely almost completely on krill, whose life cycle is dependent on the sea ice. Assuming the warming trends continue and the krill keep losing habitat, the humpbacks’ years of feasting could be followed by dwindling supplies of krill.
¶ Another example of warming’s effects on whales comes from the opposite side of the globe, where bowhead whales feed in the open waters of the
Arctic Ocean. Again, the melting ice might appear to benefit the whales in the immediate future, but the shrinking ice cover is altering the Arctic ecosystem, from phytoplankton right up the food chain.
It also invites a greater human presence, like oil exploration and shipping.
The result is unclear, but it won’t be the status quo.
¶
One worldwide change that will affect marine mammals is ocean acidification, a product of carbon emissions. This chemical change directly affects the way sound behaves in the ocean, and whales and dolphins use sound as a primary sense
. Again, we don’t know the ultimate effects on marine life.
¶ Although whales may be safer from whaling now than they were when the “save the whales” campaign began, climate changes are altering their ecosystems
. We don’t know yet whether those threats will be more dangerous than a harpoon
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070522125023.htm] SA
Whales, dolphins and porpoises (cetaceans) are facing increasing threats from climate change, according to a new report published by WWF and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
¶ ¶
The report "Whales in hot water?" examines the impacts on cetaceans including:
¶
Changes in sea temperature
¶
Declining salinity because of the melting of ice and increased rainfall
¶
Sea level rise
¶
Loss of icy polar habitats
¶
Decline of krill populations in key areas. Krill is a tiny shrimp-like marine animal that is dependent on sea ice and is the main source of food for many of the great whales.
¶
“Whales, dolphins
and porpoises have some capacity to adapt to their changing environment,” said Mark Simmonds,
International Director of Science at WCDS. “But the climate is now changing at such a fast pace that it is unclear to what extent whales and dolphins will be able to adjust, and we believe many populations
to be very vulnerable to predicted changes.”
¶
Climate change impacts are currently greatest in the
Arctic and the Antarctic. According to the report, cetaceans that rely on polar, icy waters for their habitat and food resources – such as belugas, narwhal, and bowhead whales – are likely to be dramatically affected by the reduction of sea ice cover.
¶
As sea ice cover decreases there will be more human activities such as commercial shipping, oil, gas and mining exploration and development, and military activities in previously untouched areas of the Arctic.¶ “This will result in much greater risks

from oil and chemical spills, worse acoustic disturbance and more collisions between whales and
ships,” said the lead author of the report, Wendy Elliott, from WWF’s Global Species Program.
¶
Other projected impacts of climate change listed in the report include: reduction of available habitat for several cetacean species unable to move into colder waters (e.g. river dolphins), the acidification of the
oceans as they absorb growing quantities of CO2, an increased susceptibility of cetaceans to diseases, and reduced reproductive success, body condition and survival rates.
¶
Climate change could also be the nail in the coffin for the last 300 or so endangered North Atlantic right whales, as the survival of their calves has been directly related to the effects of climate variability on prey abundance.¶ WCDS and
WWF are urging governments to cut CO2 global emissions by at least 50 percent by the middle of this
century. The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed it was possible to stop global warming if the world’s emissions start to decline before 2015.¶ The two conservation organizations further call on the International Whaling Commission to facilitate research on future impacts of climate change on cetaceans, including supporting a special climate change workshop in the coming year, elaborate conservation and management plans in light of the climate change threat, and increase efforts and resources to fight other threats to cetaceans.