#Status of Coral Reefs 2002 - International Coral Reef Action Network

Introduction
Coral reefs are coming under more and more pressures to provide fisheries resources as
income and food for people in developing countries. The WorldFish Center has made coral
reefs one of its focal areas in recognition of the importance of these roles and is working
with other agencies to determine how MPAs can conserve fish stocks and increase
productivity in adjacent areas. The WorldFish Center encourages regular monitoring and
the dissemination of status reports by researchers, governments and communities and has
developed ReefBase to ensure that coral reef data and information are widely
disseminated. ReefBase serves as the global database for the GCRMN and other
monitoring networks, as well as being a central repository of coral reef information.
Coral reef monitoring is fundamental in Australia for the sustainable management of the Great
Barrier Reef, the largest World Heritage Site in the world, as well as the reefs off Western and
northern Australia. It is recognised that these reefs are under much lower pressures than
others in the region. The Australian Institute of Marine Science maintains a program of
regular monitoring on the eastern and western side of Australia to ensure that there is an early
warning system of reef degradation. A new centre for tropical resource research is now being
established in northern Australia in association with the Australian National University. AIMS
also plays a fundamental role in developing monitoring methods and in displaying results of
monitoring on the Internet, and continues to support global coordination of the GCRMN.
This report brings together most of the major coral reef monitoring groups in the world:
the GCRMN and Reef Check are linked in a strategic partnership, with ReefBase, the
global coral reef database forming the foundation for collating and sharing the results of
monitoring and research around the world. There are also contributions from CORDIO,
CARICOMP, AGRRA and the Reefs at Risk projects (all described at the end of this report).
These partnerships will expand in the future as all these organisations share common
goals; gathering data and information for the conservation of coral reefs.
The Executive Summary and the Report demonstrate that major progress has been made
during the last few years in establishing global monitoring networks and providing
information for reef resource managers. But the Status 2002 report also demonstrates
that data are insufficient from large regions of the world, and that our attempts at
managing coral reefs to arrest their decline are still lagging behind the increasing rate of
reef degradation. There is a need to tackle two parallel agendas: the losses in coral reefs at
local scales around the world from the direct impacts of people (over-fishing, pollution,
sedimentation and conversion of reefs to other uses); and the truly global threats posed by
Global Climate Change. There was a wake up call in 1997-98 when the world’s largest
coral bleaching and mortality event ‘temporarily destroyed’ about 16% of the world’s
reefs. Some of these are now showing signs of recovery; but others are not. We must heed
this call and the previous calls that human activities are destroying the coral reef
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