Bermuda
Bermuda is a crescent-shaped chain of about 150 islands. Around them grow the most northerly coral reefs in the world, surviving because of warm-water eddies from the Gulf Stream. The most pervasive threat identified in this analysis is from overfishing, affecting all reefs (although this is probably overestimated since no account is taken of the ban on the use of fish traps on Bermuda’s reefs). However, severe overfishing of commercially valuable grouper and snapper between the 1960s and 1990s was observed when the proportion of herbivorous reef fish in the catch (e.g., parrotfish, surgeonfish, and triggerfish) increased from less than 1 percent to 31 percent, [1] leading to a dramatic change in fishery management procedures. Surveys by the Bermuda Biological Station for Research (BBSR) indicate that reef fish populations are showing slow signs of increase. [2]
Other threats to reefs come from marine-based sources (over 60 percent of the reefs are rated as threatened), as Bermuda is a popular cruise destination, and coastal development (about half are rated as threatened). The observed condition of the reefs is fairly healthy, with few declines in live coral cover since the early 1990s, and the corals are relatively free from disease and bleaching. [3]
Approximately15 percent of Bermudan coral reefs are protected through 2 coral reef preserves (the South Shore Coral Reef Preserve and the North Shore Coral Reef Preserve, which encompass most of Bermuda’s fringing reefs), 3 seasonally protected no-take fishing areas, 9 large protected dive sites, and an additional 20 smaller ones. Fishing is prohibited in these areas. [4]
[1] J.N. Butler et al.. 1993. “The Bermuda fisheries: A tragedy of the commons averted?” Environment 35(1): 7-33
[2] D. Linton et al., “Status of Coral Reefs in the Northern Caribbean and Atlantic Node of the GCRMN,” in Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2002 . C. Wilkinson, ed. (Townsville: Australian Institute of Marine Science, 2002), p.285
[3] D. Linton et al., “Status of Coral Reefs in the Northern Caribbean and Atlantic Node of the GCRMN,” in Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2002 . C. Wilkinson, ed. (Townsville: Australian Institute of Marine Science, 2002), p. 281.
[4] M. Spalding et al., World Atlas of Coral Reefs (Berkeley, California: University of California Press and UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Center, 2001), p. 102
