Excellent report and short video available on how to protect coral reefs, based on forty years of research in the Caribbean.
Based on over 40 years of research in the Caribbean, Dr Jeremy Jackson, senior advisor on coral reefs for the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature, writes:
“We already know that protecting parrotfish and other herbivores from
fishing can, in turn, protect healthy reefs. The stunning Flower Garden
Banks in the northern Gulf of Mexico are protected by their United States National Marine Sanctuary
status, which prohibits the use of fish traps and parrotfish fishing.
Bermuda has an even longer history of banning fish traps and
spearfishing. And Bonaire, with an entirely tourist-based economy that
is reliant on the health of their reefs, has long restricted fishing. A
brief breakdown in these protections resulted in an immediate decline in
the health of Bonaire’s reefs, which triggered a quick reinstatement of
protections.
But reefs where parrotfish are unprotected have suffered tragic
declines. These “Failure Reefs” are places where a variety of local
human impacts have been allowed to run unchecked: not just by
overfishing but also by overuse for recreation, excessive and
destructive coastal development, and pollution. The worst of these
include Jamaica, the entire Florida Reef Tract from Miami to Key West,
and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”