S1E111: Coral reefs can recover - but can they keep up with warming seas?

Better protection, waste management imperative for coral reef
survival.


Synopsis: Every first and third Monday of the month, The Straits
Times analyses the beat of the changing environment, from
biodiversity conservation to climate change.


Coral reefs occupy only about 0.2% of the ocean floor, yet they
are home to a quarter of all marine life. But oceans absorb most
of the heat trapped in the atmosphere due to increasing
greenhouse gases; this has caused oceans to warm and become more
acidic, and there has been a lot of damage to corals. The corals
can recover, but can they keep up? 


In this episode, The Straits Times’ US Bureau Chief Nirmal Ghosh
discusses the risk to, and the resilience of, coral reefs, with
experts on either side of the world - Jennifer Pollom in Florida,
executive director of the Ocean Conservation Foundation and
director of conservation for Rainbow Reef Dive Centre, and marine
ecologist Dr Jani Tanzil, facility director at St John’s Island
National Marine Laboratory in Singapore.


Highlights (click/tap above):


00:42 Australia's Great Barrier Reef has suffered six mass
bleaching events between 1998 and 2022 - with back-to-back events
in 2016 and 17.


02:58 In Key Largo, month over month photographs of massive
deterioration 


04:51 In the Gulf of Thailand, some low levels of bleaching in
the shallow waters - but it's nothing like what was seen in 2016
in Southeast Asia.


05:55 Heat waves are pretty typical in South Florida, but this is
the largest bleaching event that we've basically ever seen.


08:08 Human anthropogenic stress - like sedimentation - has a
huge additional, negative synergistic effect with global
warming. 


10:16 Instant morbidity in shallow reefs in Florida 


11:17 Huge concern for the future because the reefs are what
everybody comes to, to see, to snorkel, to scuba dive, and also
to fish. 


12:38 There has been a rise in conservation tourism in Southeast
Asia - a good thing overall. 


14:15 In Indonesia over a million corals have been transplanted,
but only a fraction actually followed throughStandards on what
constitutes green investments: Why this is important 


18:27 Wish list : more protection, more waste management 


Produced by: Nirmal Ghosh (nirmal@sph.com.sg), Ernest Luis,
Fa’izah Sani & Amirul Karim


Edited by: Amirul Karim


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COE Watch: https://str.sg/iTtE


In Your Opinion: https://str.sg/w7Qt


Asian Insider: https://str.sg/JWa7


Health Check: https://str.sg/JWaN


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Music Lab: https://str.sg/w9TX


Discover ST Podcasts: http://str.sg/stpodcasts


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Special edition series:


True Crimes Of Asia (6 eps): https://str.sg/i44T


The Unsolved Mysteries of South-east Asia (5 eps):
https://str.sg/wuZ2


Invisible Asia (9 eps): https://str.sg/wuZn


Stop Scams (10 eps): https://str.sg/wuZB


Singapore's War On Covid (5 eps): https://str.sg/wuJa


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