The next 10 years will mark the fate of corals

For experts there is no time to waste: we need to mitigate the effects of climate change to preserve coral reefs, now at risk of collapse

(photo: Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash) Last call for corals. Urgent action is needed to change the fate of coral reefs - from collapse to slow recovery. It is with these words that a team of subject matter experts formalized an appeal for coral health. He did so in a document supported by various environmental associations and foundations presented at the International coral reef symposium, recognizing the immense naturalistic heritage, but also the economic and social induced connected to the health of corals, most of which are found in low-income countries.

The value of corals, or rather coral reefs, is estimated to be around $ 10 trillion a year, the authors write. A value that takes into account everything that moves around coral reefs: tourism yes, but also the role of coastal protection (a healthy coral reef can help to counteract the energy and height of the waves, explain the experts. ), related fisheries and the extraction of substances useful in the medical field. But all this - together with the not negligible value in terms of biodiversity and natural beauty offered by the choirs - is likely to be lost if we do not intervene now.

“Projections tell us that up to 30% of coral reefs will continue to exist this century if we limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But if we want to limit warming to 1.5 ° C, we must do it now - commented Andréa Grottoli of Ohio State University, one of the authors of the document -. The scientific evidence and the models show that we have only a few years left to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that lead us down that path. It has to happen in this decade or we will not hit the target ".

It is no coincidence that the subtitle of the paper speaks of a ten-year challenge (to rebuild coral reefs), and serves as an additional tool for the work of COP 26 (the United Nations conference on climate, scheduled between end of October and beginning of November in Glasgow) and of Cop 15 (on biodiversity).

The requests of the experts start from the consideration that it has not been only climate change that has damaged coral reefs in recent years (with the ocean acidification and rising temperatures), but also overfishing and pollution, explained Nancy Knowlton of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, first author of the report. This is why coral recovery will not only depend on adequate emission reduction policies and / or carbon capture and sequestration activities, but also in local interventions to increase the protection and management of coral reefs, as well as in activities of active recovery, the document reads.

Policies that require ambitious objectives, resources, innovation and coordinated actions at different levels, international and local, say the experts: "Actions must be taken now to slow down and reversing climate change, improving local reef conditions, initiating recovery through restoration activities and accelerating innovation towards adaptation… there is no time to waste ".

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Topics

Environment Climate Cop26 pollution Health globalData.fldTopic = "Environment, Climate , Cop26, pollution, Health "

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