Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Restoration
Camryn Takahashi
Abstract
This is an essay that discusses the issue of coral bleaching. It is a persuasive essay so contains
several reasons why coral reefs need to be saved along with a rebuttal to reasons why people
believe saving the reefs is not worth it. More specifically, it talks about the causes of coral
bleaching such as global warming, pollution, etc, along with several statistics showing that coral
Restoration
According to an article by authors Michon Scott and Rebecca Lindsey, “El Niño arrived
in 2016, and heat stress occurred at 51 percent of the world’s coral reefs into early 2017, when a
La Niña was in place,” (Scott, M., Lindsey, R., 2018, para. 5). Heat stress often causes coral
bleaching. Coral bleaching is a growing threat to the world's' coral reefs. It occurs when corals
“expel the algae (zooxantellae) living in their tissues causing the coral to turn completely white”
(N.O.A.A., 2010, para. 2). When corals bleach, they become vulnerable to diseases and can die.
It is imperative that people take action to help save the reefs. However, coral reefs cannot simply
be saved directly since coral bleaching is caused by stressors. We have to help solve problems
that affect the corals, especially global warming. Coral bleaching is not something new, it occurs
naturally. In recent years, coral bleaching has become a more pressing issue as the frequency of
bleachings has increased, ocean temperatures rise and feasibility of restoring the reefs decreases.
Overall, coral reefs are a very important ecosystem that are home to a wide variety of species and
even provide humans with resources like food and money, therefore need to be saved.
Two of the main reasons why not much action has been taken to solve coral bleaching are
the cost of restoration and climate change. According to the article, The cost and feasibility of
terrestrial ecosystems marine coastal ecosystems, particularly coral reefs, seagrass, and oyster
reefs, are more expensive to restore.” (Bayraktarov, E., Saunders, M. I., 2015, p. 9). Since coral
reefs cost so much money to restore, people see the issue as a waste of money; that money could
be put to better use than a reef. So the question remains, what justifies using millions of dollars
Coral reefs are not just a beautiful ecosystem, they aid to our economy. People depend
on the reefs for fishing, tourism, etc so spending money to save the reefs would benefit us in the
long run. Either way, by spending money to save the reefs, or losing money due to a lack of
resources, we are losing money. Both options result in a loss of money, but they differ in that one
As global warming and climate change continues to warm the planet's oceans, large
portions of coral reefs bleach proving the need for action. An article titled, Global warming and
recurrent mass bleaching of corals said “in 2016, only 8.9% of 1,156 surveyed reefs escaped with
no bleaching, compared to 42.4% of 631 reefs in 2002 and 44.7% of 638 in 1998,” (Hughes,
T.P., Kerry, J.T., 2017,para. 3). This proves that in just a short time frame, less than 20 years, the
amount of reefs being bleaching has increased dramatically. Coral bleaching is a naturally
occurring phenomenon, however, from data collected in these recent years, mass coral bleaching
events have been increasing in frequency. Since climate change is a worldwide issue, it would
There are countless reasons why we should save coral reefs, one of the most important is
the reefs’ biodiversity. The Ocean Portal Team associated with the NOAA said, “Coral reefs are
the most diverse of all marine ecosystems. They teem with life, with perhaps one-quarter of all
ocean species depending on reefs for food and shelter,” (The Ocean Portal Team, 2018, para. 1).
Once a species goes extinct, it is gone forever. It is crucial to restore the coral reefs and stop
climate change before the world loses hundreds of species that call the reefs their home.
RESTORATION 5
Restoring coral reefs cannot be done by directly solving the problem, for example,
planting coral in bleached areas. Many small scale solutions for restoration are being
implemented but it we are to save the reefs altogether, we have to look at the causes. Besides
ocean temperatures warming, pollution is one of the causes of coral bleaching. Runoff from
factories is one of the leading types of pollution affecting the reefs and it is preventable. If steps
No matter who we are, what country we live in, what we look like, we need to
collectively realize that coral bleaching and climate change are legitimate issues. Climate change
does not discriminate. It doesn't only affect one country or continent, it affects us all. In order to
solve it, and by association reduce coral bleaching, people need to come together to figure out a
References
Bayraktarov, E., Saunders, M. I., Abdullah, S., Mills, M., Beher, J., Possingham, H. P., . . .
Lovelock, C. E. (2015). The cost and feasibility of marine coastal restoration. Ecological
Applications. doi:10.1890/15-1077.1
Hughes, T. P., Kerry, J. T., Álvarez-Noriega, M., Álvarez-Romero, J. G., Anderson, K. D.,
Scott, M., & Lindsey, R. (2018, August 01). Unprecedented 3 years of global coral bleaching,
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/unprecedented-3-years-glo
bal-coral-bleaching-2014–2017
The Ocean Portal Team & Knowlton, N. (2018, December 18). Corals and Coral Reefs.
https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/corals-and-coral-reefs
March 15). What is coral bleaching? Retrieved March 17, 2019, from
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coral_bleach.html