Atlas Shows Coral Reefs Shrinking Fast

By Rosanne Skirble

Coral reefs are home to the greatest diversity of plant and animal life found in any habitat, anywhere on the earth. But, while they are found in 101 countries and territories, the new Atlas 1 shows coral reefs occupy a smaller part of the planet than previously 2 thought, one tenth of one percent of the oceans. That's an area about half the size of France.

"This of course makes their importance even more crucial, disproportionately valuable as ecosystems 3," that's Mark Spalding, Senior Marine 4 Ecologist with the United Nations Environment Program World Conservation Monitoring Center, the organization that produced the Atlas. He says reefs are a vital natural resource that support fisheries, protect coastal 5 areas and provide economic sustenance 6 to coastal communities.

He continued, "We've got literally 7 hundreds and millions of people from some of the world's poorest countries depending on reefs as a source of food, employment and income. Those people need reefs, but as the coastal populations are growing ,so those people are over using and badly hurting the reefs and badly hurting themselves and their communities and destroying the future."

The new Atlas finds that pollution, overfishing, poor agricultural practices, sediment 8 from deforestation and irresponsible tourism are largely to blame.

Mark Spalding says climate change is also playing a role in the rapid decline of coral reefs around the globe. "In 1998 the world was swept over by one of the world's largest 'El Nino' events, and there is believe that the 'El Nino' event was exacerbated 9 by climate change which has already taken place," he says. "It appears that coral reefs are the most sensitive of all ecosystems to even minor 10 changes in temperature. And, in 1998 great [areas] of reef were decimated by warm temperatures, just one or two degrees above the normal maximum."

Rosanne Skirble: "What recommendation would you have for someone who cares about these issues? "

Mark Spaulding: "Educate yourself. Educate your community and communicate the message to others. We have to hit this at all sorts of levels. If you are a diver from a western nation then [you should] be concerned about not just about going on a good holiday, but [about] going somewhere that is not damaging the local reefs. If you are a local fisherman or a local politician try to find out more about these means of sustainable use of reefs which will lead to economic and social benefits in a very short term."

The World Atlas of Coral Reefs includes detailed 11 maps of all the world's coral reef nations with the first ever estimates of reef area for individual countries. It has pictures of reefs, reef animals and images taken from space by NASA space shuttle astronauts.

Mark Spalding hopes the Atlas will have a broad range of uses. He said, "I hope that local populations, local communities might be able to use a book like this not only to learn about their own situation, but to learn about situations in other areas and perhaps learn from some the successes and failures of other areas. I would apply almost the same set of ideas at a higher level to politicians, decision-makers and managers. They can use the Atlas as a tool to learn about management systems, to learn about the diversity and distribution of coral reefs and to learn once again from the successes and failures of other areas."

The Atlas also provides hundreds of maps of marine protected areas that incorporate coral reefs. Lead author Mark Spalding says in the places where sustainable management practices are enforced nations are reaping enormous benefits, not only for the ecosystems, but also for the local economy through tourism, marine recreation, export fisheries and emerging industries such as pharmaceuticals 12.

I am Rosanne Skirble.

注释：
habitat 栖息地
territory 地域
ecosystem 生态系统
fishery 水产业
sustenance 支持
sediment 沉淀物
El Nino 厄尔尼诺
exacerbate 加剧
World Atlas of Coral Reefs《世界珊瑚地图集》
diversity 不同
distribution 分类
pharmaceutical 药物