A Solution for Coral Reefs in Peril

Alien54 writes "At the recent Coral Reef Symposium in Bali, Indonesia, scientists concluded that most of the world's ocean reefs have been killed or severely damaged with the remainder in certain jeopardy. Disastrous reverses in reef health threaten marine biodiversity, tourism, fisheries and shore protection worldwide. Reefs die for many reasons: rising water temperatures, sewage flows, eutrophication, disease, and negligence. A reef ecosystem that took hundreds of years to grow can be destroyed in a single afternoon by dredging, dynamite or cyanide fishing. But there is a solution. In pilot installations in Mexico, Panama, Indonesia, Maldives, Thailand, and Papua New Guinea, artificial reefs have been built where corals grow rapidly even in stressed environments. Applying a low voltage electrical current (completely safe for swimmers and marine life) to a submerged conductive structure causes dissolved mineral crystals in seawater to preciptate and adhere to that structure. Surviving coral fragments are mechanically attached, and end up doing very well indeed. During the 1998 warming, fewer than 5% of the natural reef corals survived. But on the artificial reefs, 80% of corals not only survived, they flourished. Corals from these reefs are now recolonizing the surrounding natural habitats."

Comments

Underwater Habitat

[MightyYar]

When I was about 10 or 11 (1985), my mom bought me a book with a title something like "The Future for Kids" or some other cheesy thing. It had all sorts of cool things that we could look forward to in our future. One of them was the construction of underwater habitats using low-voltage grids to let the sea build the walls for you. I remember thinking how cool this was, and fantasizing about building my own habitat in the back yard (I lived on a bay).

Anyway, that pretty much sums up my pointless story. But it is very cool to see this 20+ year old idea actually used for something beneficial.

Re:Cyanide Fishing ??

[Aardpig]

I guess I'll switch my usual Filet-O-Fish for a Big Mac.

Indeed. A few years back, I was working with an NGO out in Ghana, West Africa. One day, seeing all of the piles of dried fish for sale in the market, I asked one of my local friends how they caught so many fish. He replied "Oh, its simple. They pour DDT into a lake, all of the fish float to the surface".

I was shocked; I asked him whether they knew that DDT was nasty stuff, and in particular a cumulative poison. He said "Yes", but pointed out that the economics of the situation, versus the fact that the poison wasn't concentrated enough in any given fish to kill someone outright, meant that DDT fishing was still commonly practiced.

biorock is expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

I coached high school debaters on their ocean topic last year, and artificial coral reefs were a popular point of contention. I won't really go into detail here, but don't rely on that website as your source of information. The Coral Reef Taskforce is nothing more than a front for the creators of BioRock. The whole webpage is a large advertisement. Other makers of artificial reefs and many professional scuba diving organizations also don't really care for BioRock because it is ugly, expensive, and potentially dangerous (I guess there's a risk of shock).

In any case, I'd love to see solutions put in place to save coral reefs, but I'm not so desperately enthusiastic that I'll heed the words of a website infomercial that proclaim BioRock to be the best solution.