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'Alarming' Caribbean coral loss

July 2, 2014

A UN-backed environmental study has warned that the Caribbean's coral reefs could disappear in 20 years. While it's not too late to reverse the damage, the report said, nations must act now.

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Koralle Korallenriff Belize
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

Within the next two decades, the remaining coral reefs in the Caribbean - currently only about one-sixth of its original coverage - could vanish, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said in a report on Wednesday.

"Caribbean coral reefs have suffered massive losses of coral since the early 1980s due to a wide range of human impacts," the report said.

Since then, factors "such as overfishing, pollution and global warming" had caused the drastic decline.

Climate change has long been thought to be the main reason for the damage, but the report released on Wednesday cited an even greater threat: the loss of sea life responsible for eating coral-killing algae.

"The loss of these species breaks the delicate balance of coral ecosystems," the experts found. "Most Caribbean coral reefs may disappear in the next 20 years, primarily due to the loss of grazers in the region."

An unidentified disease in 1983 killed many of the urchins which normally keep algae from choking the polyps, the tiny animals whose stony skeletons build the reefs. Combined with overfishing of parrot fish, the report said, the extinction of Caribbean coral was imminent.

'Not a lost cause'

"The rate at which Caribbean corals have been declining is truly alarming," Carl Gustaf Lundin, director of the global marine and polar programme of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said.

However, he added: "Caribbean reefs are not a lost cause."

Examples of reversing this trend already existed in the northern Gulf of Mexico and the waters around Bermuda and Bonaire, the report said.

These areas had: "restricted or banned fishing practices that harm parrotfish, such as fish traps and spearfishing. Other countries are following suit."

The report recommended other concrete steps, such as better pollution control, zoning laws and blocking the construction of tourist hotels too close to the shore.

Roughly 14 percent of the Caribbean nations' GDP is derived from tourism.

kms/rc (AFP, Reuters)