Does Our Protection Mean Killing Off The Coral Reefs?

Coral reefs are among the most biologically diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth, but some 60% of these reef systems are threatened by a deadly combination of industrial pollution, climate change and a growing excess of UV radiation.


Coral Reef

Reefs are useful to the environment and to people in a number of ways. For example, they protect shores from the impact of waves and from storms, they provide a lot of benefits to humans in the form of food and medicine, and they provide economic benefits to local communities from tourism and fishing. The coral reefs face many natural stresses, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, or predators like the crown of thorns starfish. These events are usually short lived and the coral has plenty of time to recover. The man made stresses, in particular pollution, last over prolonged periods of time without the necessary respite needed for recovery.

A new study commissioned by the European Union, published in US journal Environmental Health Perspectives, has now shown that sun screen lotions used by beach-going tourists worldwide are a major cause of coral bleaching. Sun screens have now been added to the list of agents that damage coral reefs, they directly add to the risk of damage by an estimated 10%. The study found that even small quantities of the, cream based, ultra-violet filters cause bleaching of the coral reefs.

Researchers led by Roberto Danovaro at the University of Pisa in Italy added controlled amounts of three brands of sunscreen to seawater surrounding coral reefs in Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand and Egypt. They found that even small doses encouraged large discharges of coral mucous - a clear sign of environmental stress - within 18 to 48 hours, and within 96 hours, complete bleaching of corals had occurred.

The study also found that virus levels in seawater surrounding coral branches increased to 15 times the level found in control samples, suggesting that sunscreens might stimulate latent viral infections, and other influences including pesticides, hydrocarbons and other contaminants were also found to induce algae or coral to release viruses, hastening the bleaching process.

Seven, out of the twenty most commonly used, compounds that act as UV filters were included in the study. These chemical compounds, that can also be found in a variety of other personal skin care products, have been detected near both sea and freshwater tourist areas. Previous research has shown that these chemicals can accumulate in aquatic animals, and degrade into toxic substances.

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