14 percent of world’s coral reefs destroyed in a decade: research

A global analysis released on Tuesday found that 14 percent of the world’s coral reefs were lost between 2009 and 2018, an amount greater than all the coral currently living in Australia’s reefs.

The report was released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and partners including the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN).

In “Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2020,” the GCRMN noted that coral reef populations had actually recovered somewhat following the first mass coral bleaching in 1998. In the decade that followed, reefs were able to recover to pre-1998 levels.

However, a progressive loss of coral cover was observed between 2009 and 2018, according to the report. As the monitoring network noted, although coral reefs cover only 0.2 percent of the seafloor, they are responsible for supporting at least 25 percent of marine life.

The value of products and services provided by coral reefs is estimated to be around $2.7 trillion per year.

“Maintaining the integrity and resilience of coral reef ecosystems is essential for the wellbeing of tropical coastal communities worldwide, and a critical part of the solution for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” the GCRMN wrote in its report.

Coral bleaching occurs when environmental conditions surrounding coral change. One example is when temperatures drastically rise or fall, coral will release symbiotic algae living inside their tissue, causing the coral to become white. Coral bleaching does not directly cause them to die, but does place a higher degree of stress on the organisms.

The algae provides food for the coral, and the longer a coral reef is exposed to conditions that cause bleaching, the more likely it is to starve and die.

This was the first coral reef status report released since 2008, according to NOAA, and involved around 2 million observations from more than 12,000 collection sites in more than 70 countries. The findings of the report represent the work of more than 300 scientists.

“People around the world depend on healthy coral reefs and the services they provide for food, income, recreation, and protection from storms,” said NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program Director Jennifer Koss. “It is possible to turn the tide on the losses we are seeing, but doing so relies on us as a global community making more environmentally conscious decisions in our everyday lives.”