Caring for Our Coral Reefs with Dr. Andrew Rossiter & Coral Specialist Charles Delbeek | |||||||
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A recent report predicts that by the year 2050, as much as 95 percent of the coral of Australia's Great Barrier Reef could be gone.
Dr. Andrew Rossiter at the University of Hawaii’s Waikiki Aquarium in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA spoke with Supreme Master Television on this tragic and alarming devastation of our marine ecosystems. Since receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Wales, United Kingdom in 1983, Dr. Andrew Rossiter’s career has taken him to five continents. He has published studies on the ecology, evolution and behavior of animals as diverse as the cichlid fish, freshwater insects, sturgeons, coral reef fish, birds and tortoises. In his current work, Dr. Rossiter’s concentrates on increasing public awareness about the ecology and protection of marine life and reef habitats. Dr. Andrew Rossiter : SUPREME MASTER TV: Dr. Andrew Rossiter : They are very, very heavily affected by ship waste. They’re carried around the ocean in a circular system till they end up in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where they pollute the beaches. They cause problems to the sea birds, etc. HOST: Dr. Andrew Rossiter : They have been away from the mainland for millions of millions of years. The animals that come here, that have migrated here, have been isolated for millions of years and so many of them have evolved into separate forms. Dr. Andrew Rossiter :
Because without a reef the animals have nowhere to live and they disappear. SUPREME MASTER TV: Rossiter: HOST: Dr. Andrew Rossiter : So there is a kind of thing where coral is feeding on sunshine. When the water temperature goes up, those algae die and so there is no energy source for the coral to feed on. And that is called coral bleaching. What happens is the cells, the alco cells in the coral die and the coral goes white, that is the sign that it is dead. If you go out on the reefs, you see brown, blue, brightly colored ones, those are alive. So white coral is essentially dead coral. SUPREME MASTER TV: Dr. Andrew Rossiter : The second problem is the one I referred to earlier, local pollution. So something that is thrown on the garden, up on the mountainside here, ends up in the sea, kills the reefs. Another problem is people walking on the reefs. Coral is actually a living animal. It's not a rock. When you stand on it you cause it severe damage. Often the damage results in the death of the coral. Another thing, the rivers, streams are carrying lots of soil because we've cut the forests. Whenever it rains, rainfall runs down the side of the mountains, into the streams, carrying soil. Soil gets carried out onto the reefs, smothers it. So many, many effects that we can take care of. HOST: HOST: In our first segment Dr. Andrew Rossiter spoke of the factors that are damaging and even killing the Hawaiian coral reefs. Mr. Charles Delbeek, is the well-known co-author of The Reef Aquarium: A Comprehensive Guide to the Identification and Care of Tropical Marine Invertebrates Volumes. 1 and 2 as well as many other articles and publications. Mr. Delbeek holds two Bachelor degrees in biology and education and a Masters in zoology from the University of Toronto, Canada. One of the main reasons is global warming. SUPREME MASTER TV: Mr. Delbeek: Mr. Delbeek: If the temperature remains high for several weeks or months, it’s a real problem. Annual Mean Temperature Change for Land and Ocean Mr. Delbeek: So there are success stories where reefs have come back, but that’s just one of the pieces of the puzzle. I mean there’s human impacts which can also affect the reef’s ability to recover so in areas where the reefs are still in good shape, they get bleached, they can recover, but reefs that are impacted negatively by human impacts will be much more difficult for them to recover. SUPREME MASTER TV: Mr. Delbeek: These island nations like the Marshall Islands; they’re basically coral atolls and they are only about a meter above sea level; even with the coral reef there, a tsunami would wreak quite a bit of damage. What the reef does is it acts like a buffer, it actually slows down that tsunami, it takes the brunt of the damage. Mr. Delbeek: A lot of these island nations depend on these reefs. Their beaches are directly the results of the actions of animals on coral reefs, and the coral reefs protect those beaches from erosion and without the coral reefs, all those things are going to disappear. HOST: Mr. Delbeek: HOST: The only real hope for corals in the long term is a quick, sustained reduction in our excessive greenhouse gas emissions, namely through the adoption of a plant-based diet. |
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