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

Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2002
THE POSITIVE SIGNS
Growing Awareness: There is a growing awareness of the need to conserve coral
reefs by minimising the damaging human activities at local to global scales. This
awareness is being translated into a wide range of pragmatic activities across a range of
regions, scales, disciplines and themes. This awareness can be traced back to a
sequence of wake-up calls on the increasing degradation of coral reefs:
• 1983 – the first regional-scale bleaching damage was reported during the 1982-
83 El Niño;
• 1988 – the first reports on reef status were produced by Susan Wells and
colleagues at UNEP and IUCN;
• 1992 – UNCED (United Nations Summit on Environment and Development)
focused the world’s attention on the need to include environmental
considerations during development;
• 1992 – alarm calls were raised at the 7 th International Coral Reef Symposium in
Guam that 10% of the world’s reefs were dead and another 60% were
threatened if no remedial action were taken;
• 1993 – alarming case studies on the decline in coral reefs were reported at a
meeting in Miami which stimulated calls for immediate monitoring;
• 1994 – the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) was formed at the Small
Islands Developing States conference in Barbados;
• 1995 – ICRI produced the global coral reef agenda as the Framework for, and
Call to Action manifestos;
• 1997 – the International Year of the Reef focused attention on reefs and new
activities started including launching Reef Check;
• 1998 – the Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 1998 report was released
documenting serious reef decline in may parts of the world;
• 1998 – the Reefs at Risk analysis showed that 58% of the world’s reefs were
under moderate to severe threat;
• 1998 – the largest recorded coral bleaching and mortality event struck reefs
around the world during to the 1997-98 El Niño event;
• 1998 – the 1 st International Tropical Marine Ecosystems Management
Symposium revised the Framework for, and Call to Action;
• 2000 – the 2 nd Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2000 report estimated that
major climate change events of 1997-98 had devastated a further 16% of the
world’s remaining reefs with 32% more under threat;
• 2001 – the World Atlas of Coral Reefs was produced by UNEP- WCMC;
• 2001 – ReefBase, the global coral reef, database was launched as an interactive
Internet resource;
• 2002 – the Reefs at Risk analysis for Southeast Asia reported that 88% of these
reefs were at risk from human damage;
• 2002 – the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg saw
many ‘Type 2’ partnerships launched to conserve coral reefs and ICRI and
ICRAN held side events; and
• 2002 – Reef Check produced a 5-year report that showed not only continued
declines in coral reef health, but also many small conservation successes.
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