Coral Reefs

ORONO, Maine - Greenhouse gases are endangering the world's coral reefs and could also pose threats to lobsters, sea urchins, clams, and scallops far away in the Gulf of Maine, according to a team of global researchers. The buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion could make the oceans too acidic for coral to survive in less than 50 years, the researchers reported Friday in the journal Science. The researchers say that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are higher than at any point in the past 740,000 years and rising fast as fossil fuel-dependent...

A Florida marine sciences expert is the new director of The Nature Conservancy's Long Island Sound program in New York and Connecticut. Chantal Collier most recently oversaw the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's program for conserving coral reefs. In her new position, she will split her time between The Nature Conservancy's chapters in New Haven and on Long Island. Collier says she spent many of her childhood summers on the coasts of Connecticut and Long Island, and that those experiences inspired her to pursue a career in marine conservation.

BANGKOK - Southeast Asia's tsunami-ravaged coral reefs have bounced back with surprising speed, according to a study released yesterday, four years after the deadly waves hit. The findings came as communities across the Indian Ocean remembered the disaster that struck Dec. 26, 2004 with prayers, songs, and tears. About 230,000 people were killed in a dozen countries when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake triggered the tsunami. Surveys of coral reefs after the tsunami showed that up to one-third were damaged, and researchers predicted that it would take a decade for them to fully recover.

BANGKOK — Thailand indefinitely banned diving yesterday at seven marine parks popular with tourists to try to protect deteriorating coral reefs. The ban applies to some 22 places in the parks where “bleaching’’ covers 80 percent or more of the coral reefs. The parks are on the Andaman Sea on Thailand’s west coast. The recovery of the coral would be monitored before the ban is lifted, said Sunan Arunnopparat, chief of the National Parks Department. The ban is likely to hurt Thailand’s lucrative tourist industry.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Coral that survived the 2004 tsunami is now dying at one of the fastest rates ever recorded because of a dramatic rise in water temperatures off northwestern Indonesia, conservationists said, warning yesterday that the threat extends to other reefs across Asia. The Wildlife Conservation Society deployed marine biologists to Aceh province, on the tip of Sumatra island, in May when surface waters in the Andaman Sea peaked at 93 degrees Fahrenheit — a 7 degree Fahrenheit rise over long-term averages.

MANADO, Indonesia - Six Asia-Pacific countries agreed yesterday on a wide-ranging plan to protect one of the world's largest networks of coral reefs, promising to reduce pollution, eliminate overfishing, and improve the livelihoods of impoverished coastal communities. The agreement at the World Oceans Conference creates a voluntary management plan for an area defined as the Coral Triangle, which spans Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and East Timor.

A Florida marine sciences expert is the new director of The Nature Conservancy's Long Island Sound program in New York and Connecticut. Chantal Collier most recently oversaw the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's program for conserving coral reefs. In her new position, she will split her time between The Nature Conservancy's chapters in New Haven and on Long Island. Collier says she spent many of her childhood summers on the coasts of Connecticut and Long Island, and that those experiences inspired her to pursue a career in marine conservation.

BANGKOK — Thailand indefinitely banned diving yesterday at seven marine parks popular with tourists to try to protect deteriorating coral reefs. The ban applies to some 22 places in the parks where “bleaching’’ covers 80 percent or more of the coral reefs. The parks are on the Andaman Sea on Thailand’s west coast. The recovery of the coral would be monitored before the ban is lifted, said Sunan Arunnopparat, chief of the National Parks Department. The ban is likely to hurt Thailand’s lucrative tourist industry.

SYDNEY - Marine scientists have discovered hundreds of new animal species on reefs in Australian waters, including brilliant soft corals and tiny crustaceans, according to findings released yesterday. The creatures were found during expeditions run by the Australian chapter of CReefs, a global census of coral reefs that is one of several projects of the Census of Marine Life, an international effort to catalog all life in the oceans. "People have been working at these places for a long time and still there are literally hundreds and hundreds of new species that no one...

WASHINGTON - Cleanup efforts have slowed, and garbage continues to pile up in a remote chain of Pacific islands that President Bush two years ago made the biggest and most environmentally protected area of ocean in the world. Winning rare praise from conservationists, Bush declared the 140,000-square-mile chain of islands in northwestern Hawaii the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in June 2006. His proclamation featured some of the strictest measures ever placed on a marine environment, including a prohibition on any material that might injure...

ON THE FLOOR OF THE GULF OF MEXICO — Just 20 miles north of where BP’s blown-out well spewed millions of gallons of oil into the sea, life appears bountiful despite initial fears that crude could have wiped out many delicate deepwater habitats. Plankton, tiny suspended particles that form the base of the ocean’s food web, float en masse 1,400 feet beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, forming a snowy-like underwater scene as they move with the currents outside the windows of a two-man sub creeping a few feet off the seafloor.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Coral that survived the 2004 tsunami is now dying at one of the fastest rates ever recorded because of a dramatic rise in water temperatures off northwestern Indonesia, conservationists said, warning yesterday that the threat extends to other reefs across Asia. The Wildlife Conservation Society deployed marine biologists to Aceh province, on the tip of Sumatra island, in May when surface waters in the Andaman Sea peaked at 93 degrees Fahrenheit — a 7 degree Fahrenheit rise over long-term averages.

HONOLULU - Wrecking coral will cost you in Hawaii. A Maui tour company is paying the state nearly $400,000 for damaging more than 1,200 coral colonies when one of its boats sank at Molokini, a pristine reef and popular diving spot. Another tour operator faces penalties for wrecking coral when it illegally dropped an anchor on a Maui reef. The state plans to sue the Navy to seek compensation for coral ruined when a guided missile cruiser the length of two football fields ran aground near Pearl Harbor in February.

MANADO, Indonesia - Six Asia-Pacific countries agreed yesterday on a wide-ranging plan to protect one of the world's largest networks of coral reefs, promising to reduce pollution, eliminate overfishing, and improve the livelihoods of impoverished coastal communities. The agreement at the World Oceans Conference creates a voluntary management plan for an area defined as the Coral Triangle, which spans Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and East Timor.

ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada - "Watch out! Get back!" It took a moment to register that the warnings were directed at me, as I blissfully paddled through the crystalline pool at the base of Annandale Falls. I ducked beneath a rocky ledge just in time to avoid being hit by a human torpedo, one of a group of local young men called Annandale Jumpers who leap from a cliff above the 50-foot-high falls to entertain visitors and make money. There are a half-dozen of so waterfalls on the tropical West Indian island of Grenada, which lies 100 miles north of Venezuela at the...

BANGKOK - Southeast Asia's tsunami-ravaged coral reefs have bounced back with surprising speed, according to a study released yesterday, four years after the deadly waves hit. The findings came as communities across the Indian Ocean remembered the disaster that struck Dec. 26, 2004 with prayers, songs, and tears. About 230,000 people were killed in a dozen countries when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake triggered the tsunami. Surveys of coral reefs after the tsunami showed that up to one-third were damaged, and researchers predicted that it would take a...

A one-two punch of bleaching from record hot water followed by disease has killed ancient and delicate coral in the biggest loss of reefs that scientists have seen in Caribbean waters. Researchers from around the globe are trying to figure out the extent of the loss. Early conservative estimates from Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands have found that about one-third of the coral in official monitoring sites has died recently. "It's an unprecedented die-off," said a National Park Service fisheries biologist, Jeff Miller, who checked 40 stations last week in the Virgin Islands.

HONOLULU - Wrecking coral will cost you in Hawaii. A Maui tour company is paying the state nearly $400,000 for damaging more than 1,200 coral colonies when one of its boats sank at Molokini, a pristine reef and popular diving spot. Another tour operator faces penalties for wrecking coral when it illegally dropped an anchor on a Maui reef. The state plans to sue the Navy to seek compensation for coral ruined when a guided missile cruiser the length of two football fields ran aground near Pearl Harbor in February.

SYDNEY - Marine scientists have discovered hundreds of new animal species on reefs in Australian waters, including brilliant soft corals and tiny crustaceans, according to findings released yesterday. The creatures were found during expeditions run by the Australian chapter of CReefs, a global census of coral reefs that is one of several projects of the Census of Marine Life, an international effort to catalog all life in the oceans. "People have been working at these places for a long time and still there are literally hundreds and hundreds of new species that no one has ever collected...

WASHINGTON - Cleanup efforts have slowed, and garbage continues to pile up in a remote chain of Pacific islands that President Bush two years ago made the biggest and most environmentally protected area of ocean in the world. Winning rare praise from conservationists, Bush declared the 140,000-square-mile chain of islands in northwestern Hawaii the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in June 2006. His proclamation featured some of the strictest measures ever placed on a marine environment, including a prohibition on any material that might injure...