A new WRI report on the condition of coral reefs in the Caribbean found that nearly two-thirds of the region’s reefs are threatened by human activities.
Reefs at Risk in the Caribbean found that a combination of factors—direct human threats such as overfishing and runoff of pollution and sediment from land, plus broader threats such as coral bleaching from warming oceans, coral disease from new pathogens, and perhaps increased hurricane frequency—were contributing to reef degradation.
Coral reefs have enormous value. The authors estimated that, in 2000, Caribbean coral reefs provided goods and services with an annual net economic value in 2000 between US $3.1 billion and $4.6 billion from fisheries, dive tourism, and shoreline protection services. For example, by dissipating wave and storm energy, reefs play an important role in reducing damage from hurricanes—protection that saves the region between $700 million and $2.2 billion per year. Dive tourism, which earned an estimated $2.1 billion in 2000, could lose as much as $300 million per year by 2015 as a result of reef degradation.
The report utilized WRI’s Reefs at Risk Threat Index, which uses geographic information system (GIS) data to determine potential reef degradation from four primary sources: coastal development, runoff of fertilizers from farms, marine-based pollution, and over-fishing. The Caribbean study also explores the importance of coral bleaching and coral diseases.
The Caribbean project relied heavily on the expertise and knowledge of more than 20 local, regional, and international partner organizations. The report was released under the framework of the International Coral Reef Action Network and UNEP’s Caribbean Environment Programme. It served as a contribution to the objectives of the Cartagena Convention, in particular its two protocols on Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife, and on Land-based Sources and Activities of Marine Pollution.
