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

Executive Summary
ICRI OPERATING UNITS – ICRAN
The International Coral Reef Action Network has launched a major project to conserve
coral reefs over regional scales with generous support from the United Nations
Foundation. ICRAN comes under the umbrella of ICRI and seeks to implement one of the
core mandates recommended; that of improving the capacity for coral reef management.
Within the Network there are major partners active in coral reef matters that are
collaborating to extend the lessons of demonstration sites as well as improve mapping,
analysis and information sharing on coral reefs. The UN Foundation funds are being
matched by a ‘Type 2’ initiative from the Government of the USA for increased activities in
Mesoamerica. More funds are required to achieve the goal of having a stable funding base
to tackle the problems of coral reefs at the site of many of the problems – in the user
community.
ICRI OPERATING UNITS – ICRIN
The other unit under the ICRI umbrella is International Coral Reef Information Network,
which has a goal of improving the information flow to all people interested in coral reefs,
and especially decision-makers. ICRIN is targeting special themes and groups within the
coral reef theatre, with the fishers and political decision makers being key targets. ICRIN
is run out of CORAL – the Coral Reef Alliance, which has extensive databases of extension
material in many languages and formats.
THE NEGATIVE SIGNS
Coral Bleaching and Global Climate Change
The Status 2000 report collated information from the regions and reported that corals on
approximately 16% of the world’s coral reefs were effectively destroyed during the major
El Niño and La Niña climate change events of 1997-98. Most of the damaged reefs were in
the central to northern Indian Ocean, in Southeast and East Asia and in the western
Pacific. There was also some bleaching in the Caribbean and in the Western Atlantic
including the coast of Brazil, however this bleaching resulted in minimal coral reef death
e.g. of 386 totally bleached colonies in Puerto Rico, only 3 had died and 14 had suffered
partial mortality when examined a year later.
Reports from the Nodes and coral reef scientists indicate that the recovery is only slow to
moderate along the East African coastline and in the Comores, Seychelles and Maldives,
particularly where the reefs are stressed by excess sediments and nutrients. Recovery is
poor in Sri Lanka and parts of India with the reefs remaining effectively dead. There has
been considerable recovery in the unstressed reefs of Southeast and East Asia and Palau,
and also along the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, but it will take several decades before
reefs return to pre-1998 status. There is broad concern that another Climate Change/El
Niño event could arrest the recovery.
There has been a worrying repeat of some of these bleaching events in the Pacific with
serious bleaching and mortality in Fiji and nearby countries in the southwestern Pacific in
2000 and 2002, with coral death in Fiji reaching 40% over large areas. There was also
severe bleaching along the Great Barrier Reef in the southern summer of early 2002 with
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