Environmental Causes: The Degradation Of Coral Reefs

Beside from its aesthetic value, coral reefs provide a range of goods and services, which are essential to humankind. For an environment that covers less than 1 percent of Earth’s surface, coral reefs “produce an estimated $30 billion of revenue from direct use values such as tourism and fishing, and indirect use values such as coastal protection” (“Coral Reefs: Importance,” 2016). Reefs also provide protection to our land by “reducing the resilience of waves during storms thereby preventing flooding, coastal erosion and loss of property on the shore”. Not only do coral reefs protect our land, but they have also contributed to medical advances for treatments of cancer, arthritis, human bacterial infections, viruses, and other diseases (NOAA, …show more content…
Richer, more developed countries significantly impact the health of reefs worldwide. In fact, “greenhouse gas emissions average 20.1 metric tons per person- 11 times higher- in the United States and 11.4 metric tons per person in Europe, Japan, Russia, and the other nations party to the Kyoto Protocol” (Donner & Potere, 2007). Countries that depend on corals for income are threatened by world powers. Deterioration of coral reefs is a topic of environmental justice as the “risks borne by minority populations are much higher than in their neighboring countries” (Lee, Freudenburg & Howarth, 2013). The majority of reefs are located in territories of economically stable countries, such as the United States and Australia, which need to undertake the responsibility of recovering and maintaining the wellbeing of …show more content…
Coral reefs are remarkable tourist magnets and their decline is an important conservation concern. Users maintain protectionist orientations towards reefs and support efforts to preserve them (Needham, 2010). Visitors prefer fish and coral attributes over artificial reefs, and recognize the value of their diversity (Polak & Shashar, 2013). The interdependence of natural aesthetics and conservation compels stakeholders to alter their influence and push for alternative management methods. Current practices “may not necessarily be the optimal solutions to maximize ecosystem services on some reefs of the future, and by proxy, some of the most heavily degraded reefs now” (Rogers et al., 2015). However, with increased awareness on the issue, ecologists around the world intend to discover efficient techniques that reduce the impact of both local and global stressors on coral