Fish are friends, not food

Healthy Coral

   The Coral Reef, what do you think of when you hear those words? Do you think of the beautiful colors, the thousands of fish species all working together in a balance of life? Do you think of sea stars crawling across the coral and Spanish Dancers flopping around making you laugh? The ocean is an amazing world on earth yet we have only explored 18% of it. We have used it's waters to travel the globe in search of better opportunities in life and we have also used it as a source of food an income. Unfortunately we have a problem... actually it is a really big problem. Our coral reefs are going from vibrant colorful oasis's to dying underwater forests called bleached coral. We have not been thinking about the repercussions of our actions, we have just been saying, "people need this now my kids are smart the people later on in life will worry about it, I don't have time for this." Well, that time has come, it is the future and we need to stop what we are doing before we completely throw off the balance of nature to the point of no return. We are at the point now where there are numerous marine species going extinct and even double that number in endangered species.

Bleached Coral 

        Some of the threats to the coral reefs are; coral bleaching--caused by elevated sea surface temperatures due to global climate change, rising levels of CO2, diseases linked to human disturbances in the environment, over-fishing (and global market pressures)- including the use of damaging practices (bomb and cyanide fishing), sediments-from poor land use, deforestation, and dredging, nutrient and chemical pollution, development of coastal areas, rising poverty, increasing populations, alienation from the land, poor capacity for management and lack of resources, lack of political will and oceans governance.

      When a coral is bleached that means that it has completely died, therefore not able to sustain any kind of life anymore. The ocean is home to some of the richest biodiversity on the planet. Biodiversity is when everything in a certain place has a "job" to do so to speak. The coral use photosynthesis to grow, algae grows on the coral, certain species of fish come and eat the algae for food, and bringing small fish there also attracts bigger types of fish therefore all creating a cycle and providing food and homes for all species. Everything works in a perfect balance but once one thing goes extinct there is nothing to do it's job. So for example, if one species of fish that eats algae to survive were to go extinct, there would be too much allege and it would take over therefore causing the coral to go without sun and causing it to possibly die. All because one tiny species of fish went extinct. When one thing dies everything is thrown off balance.

      Since taking an environmental sociology class at Hanover College I have been able to see what factors help contribute to the destruction of nature. Some of the concepts are; the treadmill of production, freedom-from, technological critique, and moral separatism. The treadmill of production is when there is production of a product and prices of that product go up but the pay for the workers does not go up. I believe this contributes because the price for certain fish does go up but the fishermen are still getting paid the same amount, therefore in order for them to make a decent profit they will have to catch more and more fish as the years go on. Freedom-from is a negative liberty in life. We are taking the freedom from the fish by; fishing, polluting, and destroying their homes. They don't have any say when we decide to go in and change things. The technological critique states that we solve our problems through technology. So whenever we need more fish we just get bigger nets, or we create a product in order to solve a problem but that is always a temporary solution that will never truly solve our problems. And last but not least moral separatism, as a species most humans view ourselves as separate from nature. That humans are one thing and then nature is another area of topic. But it isn't... we are apart of nature. We are mammals and we rely on the earth to supply us with the necessary resources for our survival just like any other animal. Once we see that we are apart of nature just like other animals then we might change our view on how we treat the earth and what we do to it in the future.  

Great Barrier Reef Facts 

 In the picture on the left it states that from 1998 to 2002 there was a 10% increase in bleached coral due to weather change. And that is just from the great barrier reef. Not any other coral reef in the world. We are not paying attention to what we are doing with the world around us. And if we were to fish and get only what was needed or if we were to help with the problem of global warming that would also contribute to saving the coral reefs. The ocean is a magnificent and mysterious place and I would hate for humans as a whole to ruin it and kill off species of animals before we even get the chance to explore the oceans and see what really happens underwater. If we all did our part the world would get its beautiful colors back and we would all have the chance for our future generations to see the world like we did.

Coral Bleaching has now become a common occurrence in most reefs and since 1998 every region has now experienced sever bleaching, with many areas suffering significant bleaching-induced mortality.