A Worldwatch Addendum.

• Author: Mastny, Lisa
• Position: Coral reef damage - Includes table Status of Coral Reefs Around the World - Statistical Data Included

On a global scale, add climate change, coral mining, toxic dumping, and over fishing to the phalanx of forces destroying coral reefs.

AS OF LATE 2000, AN ESTIMATED 27 percent of the world's coral reefs were severely damaged, according to the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. In 1992, the figure was only 10 percent, so the health of reefs is deteriorating quickly. The greatest losses have occurred in the Indian Ocean, in the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf, and in Southeast Asia. (See table, opposite.)

More than 100 countries--many of them small islands--rely on coral reefs for essential goods and services valued at some $375 billion a year. Reefs shelter coastlines from storm damage, erosion, and flooding, providing protection and other benefits for an estimated half-billion people. They are important feeding and breeding grounds for commercial fisheries, producing roughly a tenth of the global fish catch and a quarter of the catch in the developing world. Reefs also generate significant tourism revenue, with Caribbean reefs alone bringing in some $140 billion annually.

Coral reefs cover less than 0.2 percent of ocean area, but are among Earth's most complex and productive ecosystems. The unique assemblages of tiny coral animals and symbiotic plants provide habitat for as many as 1 million species-including more than a quarter of known marine fish species. Reef-derived molecules have been used to develop medicines from antibiotics to HIV drugs.

An estimated 11 percent of the world's coral reefs have been lost as a result of direct human pressures. These include fishing and coral mining, coastal development, waste dumping vessel collisions, and inland deforestation and farming, which can cause runoff of \ harmful nutrients and sediments. Such activities now threaten nearly 60 percent of all reefs.

The booming demand for reef species for food and for aquariums has depopulated many coral ecosystems. In Southeast Asia, live reef fish exports jumped nearly 13-fold between 1989 and 1995, then dropped 22 percent in 1996-a crash attributed to overfishing. Worldwide, a survey of reefs in some 40 countries in 1998 found that many high-value species, such as lobster, grouper, and giant clams, were missing from areas where they were once abundant.

Fishers often use methods that are highly destructive to reefs. In Southeast Asia, "blast" fishers set off as many as 10 separate explosions to obtain 1 ton of fish, shattering up to 20 square meters of reef...