Increased CO2 level threatens
coral reefs
A coral reef is made up of thin layers of calcium carbonate (limestone) secreted over thousands of years by billions of tiny soft-bodied animals called coral polyps. Coral reefs are the world’s most miscellaneous marine ecosystems and are home to twenty-five per cent of identified marine species, including 4,000 species of fish, 700 species of coral and thousands of other plants and animals. Coral reefs occupy less than one quarter of one per cent of the Earth’s marine environment, yet they are home to more than a quarter of all known fish species.
The coral scientists point out that rising global CO2 emissions embody an ‘irreducible risk’ that will quickly outdo the capacity of local coastal managers and policy-makers to sustain the health of these critical ecosystems, if CO2 emissions are allowed to prolong unrestrained.
Coral reefs have already suffered a big blow from recent warm temperatures, but rapid rises in carbon dioxide cause acidification which adds a new threat: the inability of corals to create calcareous skeletons. Acidification actually threatens all marine animals and plants with calcareous skeletons, including corals, snails, clams and crabs. The levels of CO2 could become unsustainable for coral reefs in as little as five decades. The livelihoods of 100 million people living along the coasts of tropical developing countries will be among the first major casualties of rising levels of carbon in the atmosphere.
Coral reefs are commonly depicted as natural wonders of great beauty which makes them an important tourism attraction. In Australia, revenue from international tourism to the Great Barrier Reef exceeds $6.8 billion per year. It is estimated that coral reef-related tourism generates tens of billions of dollars per year worldwide. They are the economic engine of a vast number of economies around the world.
Coral reefs occupy a unique niche in the world’s environment, where water temperatures and other environmental factors are ‘just right’. But raising the temperature as little as 1°C that ocean surface waters reach in summer subjects coral reefs to stresses which lead quickly to mass bleaching. Raise the temperature a little more, and the corals that build reefs die in great numbers. No coral, no coral reef ecosystem.
If current CO2 emission trends continue, then even the most conservative estimates predict CO2 concentrations exceeding 500ppm and global temperature increases of 2°C or more by the end of the century. Under these conditions coral reefs are likely to dwindle into insignificance; they will be reduced to rubble, threatening the fate of those tens of millions of people whose livelihoods depend upon them. Time is running short. We unmistakably have to do more to reduce CO2 emissions and still more in preparing vulnerable communities to the almost inevitable problems that they will face as a result of already entrained climate change.
As world leaders gathered in the month of December 2007 at the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Bali, the CRTR [Coral Reef Targeted Research] scientists argued that the issue of global CO2 emissions demands leadership at the international level, including a collective agreement on carbon emission reductions.
In developing countries, tourism based on ecosystem services provided by coral reefs is a vital and rapidly expanding industry. Much of the protein consumed by poor coastal communities is supplied in one way or another by coral reefs. Less visible, but no less important, is the essential role played by coral reefs in providing habitat for a vast array of marine species which contribute to a complex food chain that extends across the oceans.
The threats to this natural capital from increased CO2 emissions generated on a global scale simply raise the urgency for local reef managers and policy-makers to take responsibility for the ‘reducible risk’ to coral reefs, such as over-fishing, pollution and unsustainable coastal development. However, this is unlikely to happen, at the intensity and scale required, unless industrialised nations make funds available to assist the most vulnerable coral reef states manage these reducible risks. A range of policy and management tools are readily available, some of which have been refined through support from the CRTR Programme, and no time should be lost in applying them more widely and successfully.
These tools take account of coastal zone management, co-management arrangements between governments and local communities to foster effective stewardship, integrated catchments approaches to managing water quality and environmental flows, enforcement and compliance with fishing regulations, restoration of reefs and coastal flora and responsible tourism.
Mohammad Shahidul Islam
On e-mail
Updating government web sites
There are many reasons why government websites remain undated. First of all, the top executives are not very keen about it. Secondly, when the government organisations float up websites, they do not set up a competent web-cell. Regular updating needs not only a webmaster who knows his job, it also needs some more people including one who will co-ordinate between the web-people and other executives.
According to some webmasters their sites remain undated because they are not supplied with the ‘text’ they need to replace an existing web page or adding a new page. It is not really a matter of insincerity or negligence.
If government needs updating of its websites on a continuous basis, then every organisation will be required to have a competent web-cell. In addition to technical hands, like webmaster, who will do the updating, there has to be a text-writer. The web-cell will also need a coordinator who will collect information and data from different units of the government organisation and approve them for addition to the website.
The critical constraint is the absence of text-writer. There are not many in the government offices who can write correct English. That puts a limitation difficult to overcome.
However, the government can create web-cells in important organisations like the prime minister’s office, president’s office, ministry of foreign affairs, ministry of commerce, Export Promotion Bureau, Board of Investment, Bangladesh Bank, National Board of Revenue which have a good deal of web-clientele.
The proposed cells should have, at the least, one coordinator, one text writer, one webmaster, one web designer and one or two computer personnel to help. The webmaster may need more technical hands if it is a big website. Charter of duties of each of them should be elaborately defined and the remuneration should be up to the market standard. Without such a well-equipped web-cell it will remain impossible to ensure regular updating of the government websites.
Ehtesham Patwary
Azimpur, Dhaka
