Of all of the natural wonders of the world, the reefs of our oceans are possibly the most complex, beautiful and diverse habitats in the world. Nowhere on Earth will you find another place where every species depends on one another for its survival. Unfortunately, because of compounding factors, 20% of the world’s coral reefs are dead and more is dying every day. Scientists argue that coral reefs may have been able to fend off an aggressive attack from one front, but several different assaults are proving too great for our wonderful reefs. Rising sea temperatures due to global warming is the prime suspect. Coral is an extremely sensitive organism that has adapted to a certain range of sea temperature over thousands of years. Sea temperatures have increased about one degree Fahrenheit in the last 100 years. Now that doesn’t seem like much, but just imagine what a human body feels like for a few days with a one degree fever. Sea life has no ability to fight off this temperature rise like humans do and many organisms subsequently die off. Coral is one of these organisms. When you add to this the increased production of algae from sea temperature increases, coral is fighting an uphill battle.

Three smaller guilty parties are also wreaking havoc on our coral reefs: over-fishing, estuary run-off and African dust. Fishing practices such as netting and explosives cause extensive damage to reefs. These in turn destroy an important source of food for local communities. We must practice more sustainable fishing habits such as capping the amount of fish we can catch every year.

Our logging habits along many main world rivers are carrying soot out to sea and coating reefs and strangling it to death and forcing species to find other places to live. Once these fish are gone, there is nothing left to keep algae from growing all over the coral and finishing the coral off. They in turn bleach and life is never likely return to the reef. The same effects are being seen as the result of African dust. The Saharan desert has been eating the African continent alive because of drought. Wind subsequently carries the dust over the ocean on jet stream and drops it across the Atlantic Ocean, coating reefs and destroying the reefs in the same way soot has.

Whether the result of global warming or unsustainable human activity like clear-cutting, the destruction of our coral reefs must be stopped for fear that our children will only be able to see pictures of a colorful world under the sea, or the bleached reality of our irresponsibility.