Page 44 - Coral Reef Teachers Guide

Coral Reef Teacher’s Guide Benefits, Threats, and Solutions

Figure 3-6. Abandoned oil drums and tractor tires from coastal construction project leach poisons.
(Photo: Christopher McLeod)

• Pollution
• Damage from Divers
After it rains, storm water runoff carries trash,
Although recreational divers are often the great- oils, chemicals, and other undesirables from
est advocates for protection of coral reefs, care-
less diving can present a hazard to the ecosystem. the land into the sea. Fertilizer, pesticides,
Popular dive spots often attract more visitors than is and herbicides from agriculture also wash
healthy for the area. Lack of mooring buoys can out of fields into streams and into the ocean.
Chemicals, such as chlorine-based cleaning
result in damage from anchors. Unscrupulous dive
charters may use food to lure fish toward their solutions, PCB’s and DDT, heavy metals, and
customers, disrupting their normal feeding and minerals from mining and other industrial pol-
behavior patterns. Divers and snorkelers who take lution are known to be poisonous to marine
souvenirs, touch coral, let their fins and other equip- animals (Figure 3-6).
ment bash into it, or even kick up excess sediments Deforestation and development can damage
contribute to the demise of the very reef they came coral reefs offshore, smothered by loosened
to enjoy. soils washe by rain into rivers and out to sea.
• Coral Mining Insufficiently treated or raw sewage introduces
Coral mining is a problem in countries with few excess nutrients on the reef, covering corals
resources for construction. Iron bars are used with algae.
to dismantle entire sections of reef to build Warm water discharges from power plants
roads, walls, homes and office buildings. cause cor- als to bleach. Large sections of reef
off Guam and Tai- wan have been destroyed by
this thermal pollution.

Corals are vulnerable to oil pollution caused
by spills, leaks in tanks or pipelines, ships flushing
their tanks

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