Coral reefs around the world
‘under stress’

Russell Reichelt, Director of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), said ‘I welcome this summary report on the status of the world's reefs. While the Great Barrier Reef is under relatively low pressure from human activity, by comparison many of the world's reefs are under extreme pressure.’

‘The economic decline in developing countries has added to this pressure as people bomb or poison reefs to collect food. The methods Australia has developed to monitor and manage reefs might be helpful to others and AIMS has been supporting training efforts around the world. This status report provides a valuable baseline to measure the success of management efforts' said Dr Reichelt.

The report says that large areas of the world’s reefs are hardly affected showing ‘insignificant’ or no bleaching, such as the Red Sea, the southern Indian Ocean, the Andaman Sea, most of Indonesia, large parts of the Great Barrier Reef, most of the central Pacific, and parts of the southern and eastern Caribbean.

‘Moderate and patchy’ bleaching on some reefs in large areas, with a mix of coral recovery and around 20–50% mortality, but no effects in other parts, affected reefs ins in Oman, Madagascar, the inner Great Barrier Reef, parts of Indonesia and the Philippines, Taiwan, Palau, French Polynesia, the Galapagos, the Bahamas, Florida, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and Brazil.

Reports of ‘severe’ bleaching with around 50–70% mortality , and some coral recovery, came in from Kenya, Seychelles, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Belize.

The report describes ‘catastrophic’ bleaching, with massive mortality (often near 95% of shallow corals) in Bahrain, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and in large areas of Tanzania.

‘The 1997-1998 coral bleaching is the most severe bleaching ever observed,’ said Clive, ‘although in this case there were also more people looking specifically for bleaching after learning on the internet about areas of above average sea-surface temperatures.’

More observations and monitoring are required to determine whether bleached corals will recover (or die), and whether damaged reefs have the potential to ‘bounce back’. More importantly, there is a need for continued observations to determine whether this is a rare, severe event, or part of a pattern of increasing disturbance associated with global climate change.

For more information:

Clive Wilkinson, Coordinator Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network
Australian Institute of Marine Science

Tel: +61 7 4772 4314
Fax: +61 7 4772 2808 or 4772 5852

Copies of the report, Status of Coral Reefs of the World 1998 are available from AIMS.

Further reading:
1997-1998 Mass Bleaching Event Around the World
Status of the Worlds Coral Reefs - Executive Summary

web@aims.gov.au
Last updated - 30 November 98

Copyright ©1996-1998 Australian Institute of Marine Science

URL http://www.aims.gov.au