Human Impact
The deterioration of coral reefs is mainly linked to human activities – 88% of coral reefs are threatened through various reasons as listed above, including excessive amounts of CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) emissions. Oceans absorb approximately 1/3 of the CO2 produced by humans, which has detrimental effects on the marine environment. The increasing levels of CO2 in oceans change the seawater chemistry by decreasing the level of pH. This process is also known as acidification. Acidification negatively affects the carbonate buffering system and drops the carbonate saturation by 30%, which results in a decrease in reef calcification. Reductions in calcification have negative implications on calcifiers, such as corals and shellfish. Some examples include diminishing coral resilience from bleaching, decreasing organisms’ ability to fight off predators, inhibiting their potential to compete for food, and altering behavior patterns. When the bottom of the food web declines tremendously due to acidification, the food web and the whole marine conservation effort is jeopardized. Although humans cause the greatest threat to our marine environment, humans also have the ability to create effective management plans that will be the key to successful marine conservation. Although the most widely known conservation tool is the MPA, one of the best marine conservation tools simply stems from smarter individualist choices we make in efforts to reduce CO2 emissions on a daily basis.
Read more about this topic: Marine Conservation
Famous quotes containing the words human and/or impact:
“The discovery of the North Pole is one of those realities which could not be avoided. It is the wages which human perseverance pays itself when it thinks that something is taking too long. The world needed a discoverer of the North Pole, and in all areas of social activity, merit was less important here than opportunity.”
—Karl Kraus (1874–1936)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)