Coral Reef Destruction

The topic I chose for this project was coral reef destruction. I chose this topic because corals are very important and we need to keep them alive. Coral reef destruction is basically when the corals are introduced to unhealthy substances that can harm them. The first recorded coral bleaching was in 1911, in Florida Keys. They witnessed 5-10% of the coral reef get destroyed by the bleaching. Bleaching or destruction is mainly caused by humans and the climate. If the water is too warm for the corals they will get destroyed. We’ve seen more and more coral reefs get ruined by climate change which was caused by humans. A lot of the reefs are endangered 95% of the reefs in Southern Asia are ruined, Most of the reefs in Indonesia , 75% of reefs in the Atlantic, 65% of the reefs in the Indian Ocean and the Middle East, 50% in th Pacific, and 14% of Australia’s reefs. In the past 10 years the percentage of threatened coral reefs have gone up 30%. Overfishing has gone up 80% in the last 10 years meaning it is the biggest non-climate threat of the coral reefs. A lot of the fish in the ocean depend on the coral reefs to live. Without them they might not have enough space to live, or they can’t lay their eggs. Humans have made medicines out of some of the organisms found in the coral reef. Some of them have even been used for some medicines to help treat cancer. Coral reefs are also a great tourist spot, which humans can use to their advantage by earning money off of it in a less harmful way.  

For my solution I chose volunteering. If people start taking horrible situations like this and actually do something about it, the problem will get solved faster. Volunteering is usually cheap and easy and gives you something to do. If humans actually start taking care of our beaches, they just might become the same way they will before. Coral reefs are home to over 25% of marine life. They shouldn’t have to suffer just because of our greedy needs like one uses plastics and all the chemicals we use. Earth is already bad enough with everything else going on in the world, but that’s our fault. We’re making all these organisms suffer and lose their homes because of what we think is handy for us. An organization I found that is dedicated to marine life is NOAA. They give you many facts about the coral reefs and easily show you how to volunteer. Anyone can volunteer! I think volunteering is better than any of the other choices because you don’t have to know everything in the world about coral reefs to volunteer. Maybe you don’t even know how coral grows or why they’re important. That doesn’t stop anyone from volunteering for our planet. The more people volunteer the closer we’ll get to the coral being healthy again. Even if you can’t afford to pick up trash or clean the actual corals, cleaning beaches is fine too. Cleaning beaches is very easy and cheap! 

Here are some examples of the coral reefs now.

Work cited:

(Loria)  (“Coral Reef Crisis Guide- Facts & Figures”) (“Where Are Coral Reefs? | Coral Reef Alliance”) (“Threats to Coral Reefs  | Coral Reef Alliance”) (“Why Care About Reefs?  | Coral Reef Alliance”) (Vita) (US) (“Reefs Are At Risk | Reef Resilience”)