Coral Armageddon: A Field of Skeleton

www.kopihangtuah.blogspot.com

One would hope to see yellows, blues, pinks and reds but a melancholic wide spread white boney corals present itself, like a field of skeleton ...

ecently me and my wife went for a second honeymoon. Having realised that we have not appreciated our country enough, relative to the European tours that we did in the past, a local tropical island was perfect for a destination. We went to Tioman. It was a great retreat but to our disappointment, many of the corals were not as lively as we hoped it would be. No doubt Tioman still has many sites with colourful corals and fishes to offer snorklers and scuba divers, quite a significant portion of the seabed surrounding the island were and are still the victim of excessive disruption by tourists as well as climate change. One would hope to see yellows, blues, pinks and reds but a melancholic wide spread white boney corals present itself, like a field of skeleton. A sad story indeed.

The first thing that came to our mind was pollution by the passing ships, rubbish from tourists, contaminated water flowing from the rivers as a result of factories releasing toxic wastes and many more negative thoughts including destructive fishing practices. Whilst all of that are true to certain extent, what contributes the most is the climate change. Global warming has taken charge to what we all see as the beginning of an armageddon to the planet Earth, at least to the corals and sea life for a start. We see sea levels rising everywhere. In Malaysia, it rises by 10cm to 13cm every 100 years. 288.4km or 6% of Malaysian 4,809km coastline was being eroded by the sea. With such phenomenon, no wonder corals are having trouble staying alive.

This is a sad case really. My wish now is to visit all the other islands in Malaysia such as Pulau Perhentian, Pulau Sibu, Pulau Redang and a host of islands in Borneo. Why? Well, in my mind, give 10 years to 15 years, those coral fields would probably be the fields of skeleton mentioned earlier. A sad case really. Is it going to be like our Rantau Abang? where tourists 'used to be' facinated with thousands of leatherback turtles coming to shore to lay eggs. The number of sea turtles that lay their eggs has severely decreased in recent years. It has been estimated that during the 1950s, over 10,000 of these turtles called the beaches on Rantau Abang their home. Recently the local government have declared these turtles extinct as no turtle landings have been sighted for quite some time. Next, the government is probably going to declare the corals extinct as well? Let's hope not.

....call it the "Coral Bleaching" where algae that gives coral its colour and food dies, turning it into bone white colour..

After having read so many articles in the newspapers lately, I now understand what these fields of skeletons mean. They call it the "Coral Bleaching" where algae that gives coral its colour and food dies, turning it into bone white colour (#1). It is thought that a temperature increase of more than 1 degree Celsius (bringing the temperature to 32 Celsius) and excessive sunlight trigger the single-celled algae zooxanthellae to attack the corals (#1). It was also believed that easterly winds from the cooler waters of the Pacific have been pushing warmer waters into the Southeast Asian region, contributing to the warmth that triggered the bleaching - part of the steady increase of temperature due to anthropogenic climate change since the early 1950's associated with global warming (#1). This will take months to years for those corals to recover from mass bleaching (#1). 50% of the corals are dead after prolonged coral bleaching and 60% to 90% of the reefs in Malaysia's tourists attraction islands are bleached (#1). The same phenomenon exist in neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines for which, 20% of those corals were lost in the last several decades (#2).

Recently the government ordered the closure of many dive sites in Peninsula Malaysia to give these corals a chance to recover. The closure was for a few months. I wonder whether that is enough for a recovery phase. Perhaps the government should close those sites for a year allowing enough room for those corals to work themselves without disruption from tourists. What is more important is the pollution level in the sea water. Action must be taken to address this, i.e. put a stop to factories flowing toxic into the water, control fishing methods or sea water chemical treatment to stabilise the 'friendlyness' of the sea water to the corals. In any case, significant action has to be taken, or else, we may just now see the last of those corals that will not be experienced by our children and only to be told as a story, a myth, just like how the current generation is deprived of dolphines that used to follow the ferries from Butterworth to Georgetown (A glimpse of my memory).

... we may just now see the last of those corals that will not be experienced by our children and only to be told as a story, a myth ...

* kopihangtuah



Bibliography:
(#1 : Detailed and scientific/technical information was taken from an article "Giving corals a breather" by Evangeline Majawat in NST Friday 23 July 2010)
(#2 : Detailed and scientific/technical information was taken from an article "Tap the opportunities of biodiversity" by Zakri Abdul Hamid in NST Friday 1 October 2010)



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