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| A remote atoll in the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve, Colombia |
Two
weeks ago, I wrote about the crisis
facing coral reefs,
and described the social and ecological costs that came with the development of
San Salvador Island, Bahamas. As promised, this week I will reassure you that
some reefs are still awe-inspiring even to jaded ecologists like me and I will also
provide some insight into keeping them that way.
There
are numerous reefs that still feel wild and untamed to me. I have worked for
many years on environmental regulations for the Seaflower
Biosphere Reserve,
at 65,000 sq. km (25,000 sq. mi) the largest marine protected area in the Caribbean.
The Biosphere Reserve encompasses a chain of islands and banks, only a few of
which are inhabited, with extensive coral reefs. On an expedition to the
northern banks, I had the experience of seeing the reef crest of Quitasueño, marked
not by visible reef but by a museum-worthy collection of shipwrecks stretching for
miles. The remoteness of much of the Biosphere Reserve helps to reduce the
effects of human activities, although there are still problems associated with
global warming, coral diseases, and industrial-scale fishing. Nevertheless, these
reefs rank near the top among those that I have visited in the Caribbean for
healthy coral growth, despite the many shipwrecks.
Reefs
in the Pacific offer more pristine promise than ones in the Caribbean because
corals, which literally form the foundation of the ecosystem, have been less
severely affected by disease and warming waters. This is especially true of
branching corals, which provide essential shelter for fish and a matrix for growth
of the entire reef. In the Pacific, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are candidates
for pristine status. These remote islands stretch for thousands of kilometers
beyond the main, inhabited Hawaiian Islands. They are part of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National
Monument,
which at 362,000 sq. km (nearly 140,000 sq. mi) is the largest conservation
area in the US on land or at sea, and one of the largest marine protected areas
in the world. Though I have not personally visited these islands, I have an
ongoing research project there with Dr. Alan Friedlander of the University of
Hawaii. Dr. Friedlander is the most widely traveled coral reef ecologist I
know, and he considers the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands’ fish populations to
be among the healthiest he has ever seen.
The
most vibrant Pacific coral reefs I have seen personally were those fringing the
beach of Tanjung Karang, just north of Donggala, Indonesia. When I visited in
1996, there were two resorts on opposite ends of a beautiful white sand beach.
Though these reefs were not in a densely populated part of the world, they also
were not isolated. In addition to the two resorts, there was a town in the
middle of the beach and locals relied heavily on fishing for sustenance. At the
time of my visit, the health of the reefs on the eastern side of the beach resulted
from a business investment by the owner of the Prince John Dive Resort. He paid
the local community not to fish in front of his property and hired locals to
patrol the beach and enforce the restrictions. As a result of the fantastic
snorkeling and of the good feeling visitors associated with the protected reef,
he was able to charge about $5 more per guest per night than his competition to
the west and still attract more travelers. Given the prevailing wages in rural
Indonesia at the time, I am pretty sure he more than made up for his
investment.
Though
the Indonesian reef was awe-inspiring, with corals growing up nearly to the
tideline and housing an incredibly diverse array of fish and invertebrates, it
was most likely not pristine. The no-fishing arrangement was relatively new and
the area was small enough that it couldn’t be expected to sustain the larger
members of the ecosystem. Similarly, coral disease and other effects of global
warming, in concert with industrial fishing, had undoubtedly degraded the reefs
in the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve long before I laid eyes on them. And yet those
reefs give me a greater sense of pristine wilderness than I suspect I would
have if I revisited San Salvador, Bahamas, even though its reefs are probably
less affected by human activity.
Back
in 1995, Dr. Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia named this
phenomenon the shifting
baseline syndrome,
where we perceive the condition of an area (or a fishery) relative to its
health when we first observed it. This syndrome can lead us to believe that our
environment is healthy when in fact it has slowly but dramatically degraded,
much like the anecdote that a frog, which would otherwise avoid boiling water,
will stay if the water is heated sufficiently gradually. Because of shifting
baseline syndrome, I am suspect of a new visitor’s tendency to believe a reef
like San Salvador is pristine, just as I am suspect of my own reaction to the
reefs of the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve. I do trust the opinion of experts
like Dr. Friedlander because of his worldly perspective. For the most part,
though, judging pristine is a scientific undertaking and invariably subject to
differing opinions and general uncertainty. Even among experts, judgment has to
be methodical since the vibrancy of the pristine state of coral reefs will vary
a lot based on local environmental and biogeographic conditions.
Historical
sources can help us with the challenge of judging pristine. I contributed to a
chapter of a forthcoming book called Marine
Historical Ecology in Conservation: Applying the Past to Manage for the Future,
edited by Jack Kittinger, Loren McClenachan, Keryn Gedan, and Louise Blight. My
chapter, co-authored by Dr. Friedlander and Haruko Koike, explores
possibilities of using historical data for perspective in evaluating the
current health of fish stocks. In other chapters, similar techniques are
proposed to evaluate the health of entire coral reef ecosystems.
My
review of relatively pristine reefs provides some insight into the causes of
degradation and some possible solutions. The most obvious characteristic of
most of these reefs is their isolation. Unfortunately, technology is making it
easier to visit even extremely remote areas, and therefore raising a conflict
between the existence value of pristine coral reefs and their use value.
Economic conditions may still provide some protection for remote areas, though.
In work with Martha Prada, Erick Castro, Lucy Alvarez Bustillo, and several
other Colombian colleagues, I have been able to show that expensive fuel and
depressed demand for lobster during the world recession dampened effort to
catch lobster in and surrounding the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve. The economic
conditions have improved, however, and fishing pressure is sure to increase
without tighter regulations. Since isolation adds a whole suite of challenges
to the enforcement of regulations, we also need to look at better protection of
less isolated reefs. In this regard, the Indonesian reef described here offers
some promise. If people are so inspired by healthy coral reefs that they are
willing to pay extra to visit them, we have the option of charging them for the
privilege and using the proceeds to constructively involve the local community.
Best,
Josh
For
more information, read our other blog posts and visit us at Bridge Environment.
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