Protect Our Coral

A Fragile Part of The Marine Environment

Last week, or perhaps 2 weeks ago, there was a program airing that caught my eye. I sat down to listen what the hosts/researchers were talking about. It was a one hour marine program with a large portion dedicated to the preservation and prevention of, the ongoing assault on "our coral reefs."

I call them "ours" because coral belongs to the ecosystem and our goal as men and women is to attempt the task of preserving this planet's important resources from those among us who - don't care - aren't informed - or profit by the use and subsequent destruction of vital elements of these resources.

Corals are actually little plant-like animals, which along with the skeletons of dead crustaceans and algae build themselves up into larger and more prolific colonies, which grow, using air / water to derive the energy to continue building up each coral critter into a much larger skeleton that eventually forms the structure of a reef.

The reef forms a barrier from storms, feeds thousands of species of fish who hunt small prey that use the reef for protection. There is 1/3 of our coral that has been killed off from global warming, increasing amounts of sediment, toxic chemicals, and a dozen or more reasons I can't recall. Coral only grows about 1 cm per annum which isn't much. One can easily see that the destruction of coral is rapidly outstripping it's ability to sustain itself and the coral continues to be eradicated. Just a diver poking about or standing on this coral can cause widespread damage on the reef and it's eventual death.

Coral reefs are often referred to as the oceans medicine chest or it's "rain forest". We must stop damaging and killing off our coral, as it may contain wonderful components that could lead to cures for various diseases - just as we have lost the ability to study plant life found solely in the rain forests - because we're cutting them down at breakneck speed for chopsticks and paper packaging for Asia and the rest of the world.

Next time you're diving a reef, keep in mind that you're a guest in a large underwater city. Don't go mucking things up by prying up bits of coral for a lame souvenir - help save the coral by behaving like a privileged guest. You may be saving the cures to disease that will assist generations to come, and at the very least you'll be saving these beautiful colonies for future divers to enjoy as well. Do some research of your own, this is just a quick post but there's volumes of detailed indepth information available, on what you can do to help save our coral!