Scubareefing

Dive into the Seas and Oceans

A collection of inspiring news from SCUBA Diving Community

Our aim is to provide a compelling narrative and case for change to inspire people all over the world.

In News

Add Comment

International Year of the Reef 2018 – So What?

This is my first dive for 2018, the International Year of the Reef, and as I don my mask and roll in, I’m deeply reflective of the changes I’ve seen on our reefs, in my short life time.

When I first started diving, in 1988 our reefs were glorious. Now, I’m still amazed by their beauty, the ability to find magic under every crevice, but it’s shabbier, there’s more green and brown stuff (macroalgae), there are fewer fish and gone are the frequent sightings of big predators.

As I glide, I fondly remember George, the big, friendly barracuda that lived on the Stavronikita, thought to have been killed by spearfishers. More frequently, I’m seeing coral smashed to pieces by anchors and reduced are the massive colonies of star and starlet corals, our framework builders. It’s amazing to me that we seem so insistent on trying to wipe out this ecosystem that has created our island and on which our lives and livelihoods depend.

Nowhere are my thoughts clearer than underwater, with the body and mind in a state of weightlessness, surrounded by a kaleidoscope of colour and my thoughts drift. So it’s International Year of the Reef again. First declared in 1997 and then again in 2008, by the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) to highlight coral reef issues; we’re here once more, ten years later in 2018, with the same old issues and new ones layered on top of them.

A coral reef is a gift that keeps on giving, but only if we take care of her. Her gifts, her ecosystem services are in decline and as we destroy her and her associated flora and fauna, we are also losing; her protection – the ability to save us from high intensity waves (think hurricanes and storms); food (think fewer and smaller reef fish), habitat for animals in our beautiful and barren seas and we impact our recreational spaces and our tourism product, as without her anchoring our beaches in places, they erode.

We know what we’ve done to our reefs, as the Coastal Zone Management Unit and the University of the West Indies (CERMES) have been documenting their demise very efficiently since 1982. We’ve lost around 50 per cent since the monitoring programme began and the decline started before that. It’s not just us, regionally Caribbean coral reefs have declined from 50 per cent in the 1970s to less than 20 per cent today.

Top Sentiments

Contact us