When we take too much coral we lose

CORAL reefs may not relate to most people’s daily lives, but their role in nature cannot be dismissed.
They provide habitats for various types of animals and offer fishing and tourism resources.
They also serve as natural embankments to protect land against big waves, including tsunami.
Coral reef ecosystems are a valuable source of food and income to coastal communities around the world.
Coral reefs are found all around the world in tropical and subtropical oceans.
They are usually found in shallow areas at a depth of less than 45 metres.
However, some coral reefs extend even deeper, up to about 140 metres deep.
Despite how important coral reefs are to life in the ocean, all of them in the world add up to less than one per cent of the sea floor – an area about the size of France.
However, the ecosystems that embrace coral reefs are under threat from the serious danger of coral bleaching — apparently due to rising sea water temperatures linked to climate change.
Coral reefs are some of the most diverse ecosystems in the world, housing tens of thousands of marine species.
About one-third of all marine fish species live part of their lives on coral reefs.
Yet destructive human activities have now put nearly 60 per cent of the world’s coral reefs in jeopardy, according to a 1998 World Resources Institute study.
That is 20 years ago. Imagine how much damage within that period till today.
Pollution and sediments from agriculture and industry and overexploitation of fishery resources are the biggest problems, but the fragility of reef ecosystems means that even less damaging threats can no longer be ignored.
Prominent among these is the harvesting of coral, fish, and other organisms for the aquarium, jewellery, and curio trades, as well as live fish for restaurants.
Where there is coral reef, you see a diversity of different fish.
The death of coral reefs is a tragedy.
Here in Papua New Guinea, it is under threat of being over harvested for lime-making.
The news article on Siassi islanders extracting coral to make a living is one of the many instances of what the coastal communities are doing to the coral reef ecosystem.
While we sympathise with them that making lime to sell is the only way of making money for their families, they have obviously forgotten what our future generations stand to lose.
If that is the only way of sustaining their lives, they should go into coral culture so they can be able to grow coral specifically for harvesting and making lime.
The responsible authority should assist the communities with this activity.
A Coral Triangle blog report in 2010 said, on M’Buke Island in Manus, the elders, environmental conservation core group and the women coral collectors in the community have collaborated with the village chief on the regulations and laws on when and where corals can be harvested.
Coral harvesting can be done four times a year.
The harvest season is closed for three months and on the last two days of the third month, women can go out to selected areas to harvest with a limit of one basket per collector.
The harvesting of coral can become a problem if unregulated and unmanaged.