It noted that studies also have shown that about 93 percent of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef was bleached as of April.
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“Continued bleaching could not only impact the reef’s status as Australia’s premier global tourist destination, but also impact Australia’s identity as an worldwide tourist destination”, it said. Much of the inner reef at Hanauma Bay is dead after decades of tourist interaction, but the outer reef is still relatively healthy.
The coral bleaching event sweeping the globe and destroying vast tracts of valuable coral reef is now officially the most widespread in recorded history, and is likely to continue for an unprecedented third year, according to the United States weather agency.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials announced Monday the bleaching is expected to continue through 2016, its third year.
In 2013, a massive heat wave scientists dubbed the Blob hit the northeast Pacific, followed in 2015 by the El Niño that has resulted in about two years of continuous waves of warm water, said Mark Eakin, NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch coordinator. So will reefs surrounding the island nations of Palau and Micronesia, which are situated in a part of the western Pacific that sees warmer temperatures during La Niña years. “Islanders there are very dependent on their coral reefs and diving tourism is a major contributor to their economies”.
The International Coral Reef Symposium convened Monday to try to create a more unified conservation plan for coral reefs. “Globally, we need to better understand what actions we all can take to combat the effects of climate change”.
This week, more than 2 000 worldwide reef scientists, policymakers and stakeholders are gathering in Hawaii to discuss what to do about the global decline of coral reefs.
In terms of foreign tourists, more than half Chinese respondents, and about a third of American and British participants said they were more likely to visit somewhere other than Australia if the reef’s deterioration persisted.
“It’s time to shift this conversation to what can be done to conserve these fantastic organisms in the face of this unprecedented global bleaching event”, said Jennifer Koss, the director of NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program, in a statement.
After the most powerful El Nino on record heated the world’s oceans to never-before-seen levels, huge swaths of once vibrant coral reefs that were teeming with life are now stark white ghost towns disintegrating into the sea. Meanwhile, scientists have found certain coral are more resilient than they though, especially in places they didn’t expect.
In the other project carried out by the state of Hawaii, seed banks and a coral nursery to expedite coral restoration projects are being created.
Gates, who helped organise a conference this week said the scientific community needs to make it clear how “intimately reef health is intertwined with human health”.
But NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is taking a wider view, from about 23,000 feet above.
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The good news is that this year’s potential bleaching event won’t be as devastating as the other two events, NOAA said. In order to collect the information, the researchers have put in use specially designed imaging instruments attached to aircraft.
