The struggle in the coral reefs

Have you felt the discomfort coming in and out of your freezing corporate cubicle and stepping out in the hot sun for your lunch break? Humans are not the only ones who feel the discomfort. Rohan Arthur from Nature Conservation Foundation shares his thoughts on how the coral reefs responds to changes in sea temperatures.

Question: Is the climate-change threat real?

Answer: Climate-change is with us to stay and working in the reefs of the Lakshadweep, you are reminded of it every time your fins hit the water. As we speak, the   Lakshadweep coral reefs are undergoing a major mass bleaching of corals in response to increased sea-surface temperatures. This is the second such catastrophic  ocean-warming event we have seen in these reefs in the last decade. What is clear is that events like this will increase in frequency and intensity in the coming decades.

Question: How does climate-change affect marine ecosystem?

Answer: Ocean warming results in dramatic bleaching events in reefs around the world. We are likely to see changes in sea levels which can alter our coastlines. Atoll island  groups like the Lakshadweep, with most of its land area less than 2-4 meters above sea level are once again most vulnerable to this change. Perhaps most  insidious of the effects of global warming are the impacts of a process called ocean acidification. What it means for marine systems is that many marine animals,  corals, crabs, mollusks and a range of others will be even more vulnerable to other disturbances.

Question: What is most alarming with regard to marine ecosystem?

Answer: The Indian subcontinent has a huge coastline, yet, for the most part we have almost no understanding of the functioning and status of our marine  ecosystems. It would be ideal if our marine biologists and fisheries scientists were studying not from over the side of a boat or from remains preserved in formalin,  but by entering the water and seeing their species alive in their natural habitats.

Question: What about the unsustainable fishing methods that affects the marine ecosystem?

Answer: The sea is the last bastion of the hunter. The hunting could be a single fisherman with a rod and line or a large industrial trawler with kilometer-long nets scraping the ocean floor. On land, we have been working our way up the food chain –the vast majority of our meat comprises herbivores – think of cows, sheep and goats for instance.

In sharp contrast, in the seas, our tastes migrate to the top of the trophic pyramid and most of our fishing pressure is targeted on the large carnivores: tuna, cod,  shark and a host of others. Given their low numbers, it is easy to remove these top carnivores by overfishing them and the results can be dramatic. In some of the best-documented examples within the Indian Ocean, the overfishing of triggerfish along the Kenyan coast led to a dramatic population explosion in sea urchins and a subsequent decline of coral as the urchins grazed and abraded the coral skeletons.

Question: How important is it for others to be aware of marine life?

Answer: I can offer half-a-dozen wellreasoned and eventually half-hearted logics, ecological, economic and philosophical, for the average citizen to know and conserve  wild areas. If you need a reason to believe that the wilds are worth maintaining, just take a snorkel and mask and swim over a coral reef for an hour. Even in a reef battered by overfishing, pollution and mass bleaching, there is enough spectacular beauty here to fill several lifetimes of wonderment. There is surreal  inspiration below the waves and for me this is perhaps the most persuasive reasons that I would like to see these ecosystems continue to flourish.