Coral warning
One early summer Saturday, with the sky clear, Charlie Veron was comfortably diving in the warm shallow waters off Pandora Reef on the central coast of Queensland when suddenly, something alarming caught his eye. He passed through schools of swimming fish and dive to the edge of the colorful coral reef below to examine it, especially one of the clusters of forked corals that is rare elsewhere. Later, Veron himself gave this particular coral a name, "Goniopora Pandoraensis" (Goniopora Pandoraensis).
These corals are predominantly brown and yellow, contrasting sharply with the pink, ochre, blue, and bright green varieties that later made Pandora a diving and tourist destination (more recently mainly attracting Japanese tourists). But to Wei Long's surprise that day, a very unusual pure white appeared in the center of a crown of horn-hole corals. The white area is rounded and about 6 inches in diameter. He reached out and gently touched one of the white coral bushes with his bare hands. Most of them were still hard, alive, and felt harsh— a touch known to anyone who had touched the coral directly with their hands. If the coral dies, the leaf-like bones will break, and even if it is only touched, it will shatter into powder and fall to the bottom of the sea like snowflakes. Veron was sure they were alive, but he was also alert, for their morbid appearance foreshadowed a possible impending death. He pulled out his waterproof camera and took a picture: the first time he had seen what came to be known as the "coral bleaching phenomenon" on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the pearl of biology in the Pacific Ocean.
This is one of the first signs that the oceans (in this event, primarily the Pacific part of the Global Ocean System) are being severely tested.
Veyron is a naturalist, scientist, and coral expert who has been studying the beautiful corals of the Great Barrier Reef since 1972. He later discovered, documented, and classified 845 known reef-generating hard-bodied corals in the world, and wrote an authoritative encyclopedia of the coral world. So he was sure enough to judge what he was seeing as a terrible harbinger: a massive bleaching of corals would sweep across the tropical ocean in the coming months or years. "It's a terrible scene." He later said, "Corals that are 400, 500, 600 years old have bleached and died." That's what's been going on lately. ”
His last words are important because they illustrate that some kind of external force that has only recently appeared, that was not yet known or uncertain, or that was not fully recognized, caused these lovely and highly sensitive animals to wither, bleach, and eventually die.
Weyron's friend and colleague Ove Hoegh Guldberg of Brisbane makes a compelling point: Corals are an accurate indication of future global climate change and can be seen as a bellwether for future climate problems. He has always believed that because corals are plant-like animals and can build stone-like castles for themselves, thus integrating biology, botany, and mineralogy, they are not just embellishments in the ocean, but have more significance. They are nature's most sensitive early warning devices, reacting quickly to the smallest changes in the environment and therefore serving as signals for all kinds of environmental problems on Earth.
That's exactly what the corals of Pandora Reef did that summer: they warned the world.
Charlie Veyron, who was highly sensitive to subtle changes in coral communities, was the first to receive this early warning signal. The impact of this discovery was so great that he has since devoted himself to promoting the importance of coral reefs to help people understand their beauty, fragility and perishability, as well as their ability to herald danger at any time.
Rainforest in the sea
The Pacific Ocean is home to twice as many corals as the Atlantic, thousands of crater islands and numerous skirt reefs along the sea. Most importantly, at the southwestern border of the Pacific Ocean, where the Coral Sea meets the springs of the Eastern Australian seafloor, there is a 1,400-mile-long Great Barrier Reef of about 3,000 coral reefs and 900 coral islands. Just as pandas and blue whales symbolize beautiful endangered mammals, bluefin tuna, big shoal cod, dodo, great auk, and Japanese cherry blossoms represent the preciousness and fragility of nature, and the Great Barrier Reef also represents the fragility of the earth's exquisite balance.
It's not just corals that are fragile, it's not just marine life that's fragile, it's life on earth as a whole.
Science can prove that if the Great Barrier Reef disappears, so does the entire natural world. Australia's coral populations are undoubtedly the largest in the world, growing in length and area than those growing in the Bahamas, the Red Sea, Belize, the Yucatan, Guatemala, Florida, and the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Even astronauts can see it stretching northwest from the sparkling tropical waters near Gladstone until it fades away in the turbid estuary of the Torres Strait, creating a pale green of shallow sea.
Coral reefs make up only a small part of the surface, only 0. 2% of the area, but because of the extreme abundance of marine life, their significance is far beyond the level of the area. There are nearly 400 species of soft and hard corals in the Great Barrier Reef: brain corals, antler corals, columnar corals, disc corals, and more. A quarter of marine life depends on the reefs produced by these corals for their survival. The mere existence of these reefs is to protect the coastline, nurture fish, and contribute wealth to the people living around them. The limestone formed by coral bones absorbs carbon dioxide from the air and plays an important role in the Earth's carbon cycle.
Coral reefs are the equivalent of rainforests in the sea: vibrant, glorious, yet fragile and facing great threats. Whoever it is, just wear a hood and snorkel, jump off the side of the ship, dive into the warm and clear shallow water to see the outer coral reef, you will be amazed.
A few inches away is a colorful world of life: green and yellow, red and pink, light blue and dark brown, all kinds of colors and types of coral; in every crevice flutters the delicate tentacles of the anemone that can never be eaten, or the shells of clams slowly one by one; on every flat coral slope, there are palm-sized crabs crawling back and forth; and like yellow striped colored lights, small fish that flash bright blue electric light, shuttle between the coral pillars, busy with their mysterious causes The larger fish are silvery, calm in their movements, and politely slowly pass through the water; in the coral sand at the bottom, some small animals have swirled up the fine sand and buried themselves in it, and some have drilled out and swam into the green light. This vivid drama seems to be constantly playing out with the tides, currents, and waves, reflecting all the imagery on the silver sea.
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(**Gladstone's reef is more than 125 miles from the coast.) When Captain James Cook sailed the HMS Endeavour into the calm waters in May 1770, he did not realize that he had arrived in the land of the dead. The further north they go, the closer the reef gets to the coast. Finally their ship slammed into a coral reef and was stuck dead. The ship was punctured and badly damaged. Eventually, Cook used his superhuman efforts to free the boat from the sharp coral reef rocks and jolt into an estuary where Cooktown is now. The natives of the hilltop saw him and his broken ship; they probably didn't care that he named the place that nearly killed him as Cape Tribulation.
The Great Barrier Reef is home to at least 1,500 species of fish, a large population of turtles, dolphins, manatees, rays, sharks, stingrays, baby whales, porpoises and more. There are also countless snails, sea anemones, clams, sea cucumbers, seaweeds, seahorses, and seaweeds. Sandbars on the surface of the sea are also lined with ferocious saltwater crocodiles and other milder flora and fauna, as well as a significant proportion of the world's coastal birds and waders. There is also a very wide variety of seabirds, from ordinary seagulls and terns, tropical birds, frigate birds,, to the majestic white-bellied sea eagle (which has been revered by the indigenous peoples of the coast for thousands of years).
As the new chief scientist at the Australian Academy of Oceanography, Charlie Wellon is well aware of the cause of coral bleaching, which he first discovered in 1981. Polyps are usually rich in a type of algae plant cell called "zooxanthellae", and the two coexist harmoniously: seaweed photosynthesize to provide nutrients to corals, while corals provide protection for seaweeds. When seaweed feels safe and comfortable, it makes oxygen for corals to use, and corals need oxygen to make all kinds of substances, especially the calcium carbonate it needs to form bones, which are the core materials for forming coral reefs. The color of corals also comes from zooxanthellae, but only if the seaweed feels safe and comfortable.
However, due to various reasons, polyps occasionally issue eviction orders to expel seaweed. Their previous symbiotic relationship was quickly terminated, and the coral was left in an awkward position, unable to obtain the oxygen it needed, without the byproducts of seaweed photosynthesis – glucose and amino acids – and the inability to maintain its famous bright colors. To outsiders, the color of the coral suddenly disappeared and became dead white, as if it had drifted by. If this condition continues, without oxygen, glucose and protein, the polyps will die.
Veyron also guessed why his horn-aching corals would suddenly drive away the seaweed and end the friendly and necessary relationship. It's all because of the pressure. Coral is a very delicate animal, and once the sunny warm shallow sea in which it lives is seriously disturbed, it will be frightened, and zooxanthellae will become the first victims of its sensitive nerves.
There are two main causes of discomfort to corals: it may be due to the increase in the temperature of the seawater, or it may be due to the increased acidity of the seawater. In the 1980s, it was both. For reasons that were still unclear at the time, the average temperature of the sea rose by about one degree Celsius, which meant that by the hottest days, temperatures would exceed the capacity of corals, with obvious catastrophic consequences. Worse is yet to come.
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There are many crises
A few weeks later, the first bleaching suddenly spread, not just in the Pacific Ocean, but around the same time as Pandora Reef, and early albinism was also found in the Galapagos Islands, 8,000 miles away. The first large-scale bleaching event of 1981-1982 showed that Australia's problem is also a global one.
A cruel irony is that a few weeks before the bleaching of Pandora Reef, UNESCO had just inscribed the Great Barrier Reef on its World Heritage List. It's a huge honour, but it also keeps the world's attention on Australia, putting it in charge of the guardian class's official recognition of the world's treasures – and if something goes wrong, Australia can't blame it. Australia won the honor, but at this time it also had to bear the blame. In the time that followed, coral reefs around the world continued to suffer hard. The most famous was a bleaching disaster between 1997 and 1998: a type of hot water coral that grew mainly in the Red Sea and the Andaman Islands died! The reason is that the sea temperature is too high for even this coral species that adapts to the high temperature.
An bleaching event in 2001 was so large that many respected marine biologists began to predict that all of the world's coral reefs would disappear within another 50 years. Australia's reefs have lost half their coral, most of it after the catastrophic events of 1998. Efforts are being made to turn things around, and labs in Hawaii have achieved some results, mostly through bold experiments to cultivate new varieties of heat-tolerant corals. Whether this is just a palliative or not a cure is still inconclusive. Most scientists (but not all), some, still question the link between climate change and coral destruction. In particular, they noted that some of the seas are clean, well-managed and coral reefs are in good condition, so in other areas, particularly in poorly regulated areas, the main reasons are more likely to be some local threats. It is believed that the crisis of coral reefs is caused by warming and acidification of the oceans, and although people are angrily denouncing this as a man-made disaster, more and more people are worried that the situation is too severe to return, and corals may soon become fossils.
Australia's role is a little more complex. Local pollution is a major source of disaster: Queensland's waters into the sea contain a lot of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, animal waste and so on, which are particularly harmful to corals. Tourists have also inadvertently become accomplices: careless when driving a boat, sloppy when diving, and greedy when looking for souvenirs. Overfished fishermen fish in protected areas, causing even more damage.
Corals have also been battling crown-of-thorn starfish. It's a very nasty carnivore with up to 21 wrists and thousands of needle-like spines that secrete toxins and a nasty foam like a detergent. They will stay on top of the coral, swallow it whole into their big belly, and then digest it in place and eat the coral. A single crown of thorn starfish can kill 65 square feet of coral in a year.
People thought of some ingenious ways to get rid of starfish. The first is to increase the number of conchs called Dafa snails. It is a natural enemy of starfish and can be chopped to death with its sharp tongue. Another approach is to have the diver inject the starfish with a chemical that foams and festers, doesn't bulge, and eventually shrinks to death. Skilled divers are said to be able to get two starfish in one minute. In a multi-pronged approach, the number of starfish has declined, at least for now.
However, other threats began to rise. In 1975, Australia established the Marine Parks Authority, which is responsible for the supervision and protection of the Great Barrier Reef (mainly from the fees paid by tourists). The agency was quick to point out that the harm caused by climate change is the greatest. But it has been widely criticized for allowing developers, especially mining companies, to carry out projects that expose coral reefs to greater, near-term harm.
One of the most typical examples of this development is the establishment of a new coal port at Abbot point. It's close to bowen town in the heart of Queensland, and the harbour is close to Whitsunday Island, Hayman Island, Airlie Beach, Lindeman Island, and some of the Great Barrier Reef's most famous and beautiful attractions. To establish a port here, you need to dig up millions of tons of seabed and make room for loading docks, so that the clear waters on which corals and seaweed depend will be muddy. Much debate is about this, reflecting the contradiction between Australia's economic needs and the long-standing expectations of the wider international community.
The controversy is also a reminder that Australia has vast mineral resources that can meet the growing needs of some countries. Many Australians make huge profits from such deals. Australia has been largely unaffected by the world economic crisis of recent years, and at a time when most of the world's people have begun to cut back on spending and tighten their belts to live, Australians still maintain an enviable standard of living.
Canberra, of course, is struggling to maintain that status quo. In 2013, the government's environment department approved the construction plan for Cape Abbott, and the government's Marine Park Authority issued a permit. Both agencies responsible for protecting nature have turned to protect the interests of coal mine development, so they have been widely criticized. Charlie Veyron was already grieving the end of the coral, full of anger and doubt. Hearing the Marine Park Authority approve the construction project for Cape Abbott, he said: "The only official guardian of the Great Barrier Reef is committing suicide."
In early 2015, the World Wildlife Fund also criticized the Australian government for poor governance. In Geneva, 10,000 miles away, UNESCO officials are equally worried. They have the ability and the right to declare the Great Barrier Reef's status as a World Heritage Site in jeopardy and, to the extreme, to revoke its World Heritage status outright. Needless to say, this will disgrace Australia. But the power of commerce is powerful, and coral reefs are just beautiful for some. In the New Pacific, business is the trump card.
END
Text: Simon Winchester
Photo: "The Story of the Pacific", Pixa August, Photo.com Copyright Image
【Further reading】
The Story of the Pacific, Simon Winchester
A human epic of history and modernity, power and civilization, science and technology, commerce and trade, detailing the historical changes in the Pacific Rim region since Magellan discovered the Pacific 500 years ago.