Friday, August 15, 2008

Coral Reef Alliance: video of declining reef habitat at Akumal

Kudos to the Coral Reef Alliance for posting a great video by Drew Wohl that highlights how coral reefs are impacted by man-made development. At Akumal, at the Yucatan Peninsula, expanding development is adversely affecting turtle breeding grounds and affecting the overall health of the reef due to sewage (whether treated or not) that causes an increase in algae and bacteria growth.



This is not a unique phenomenon. Supposedly processed sewage disposed at sea has been shown to have detrimental effects worldwide - from California to the Caribbean.
The video the Coral Alliance posted is not all gloom and doom. It shows the benefits of marine protected areas, such as can be found in Cozumel, and how they can protect the health of the reef and, in so doing, support the tourist trade in a more environmentally sensible fashion.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for posting information about CORAL's work on your blog. One of our biggest challenges is communicating to the world how important these fragile ecosystems are, and your efforts help us get the word out. We'll be updating our newly redesigned website regularly, so check back often for new information: www.coral.org. Thanks!

Julie Bennett
Communications Manager
The Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL)

RTSea said...

Julie:

You are most welcome! Good groups doing good work need all the support they can get. I hope more people look into to what The Coral Reef Alliance is doing.