A gift for loved ones & the planet: Tourism Fiji and the Coral Gardeners introduce the Coral Bouquet It is the season of love, and how better to express your feelings to your loved one than by giving a bouquet of red roses, a box of assorted chocolates, a romantic dinner date, or a long drive. At Tourism Fiji it’s time to twist this age-old tradition and talk sustainable. This year, Fiji, the South Pacific archipelago and top honeymoon destination is offering lovebirds a sustainable alternative in the form of a Coral Bouquet planting for Valentine’s Day. Home to the third-largest barrier reef in the world (The Great Sea Reef, known as Cakaulevu), Fiji is surrounded by beautiful but also fragile corals at threat from warming oceans. 100% of the proceeds from this alternative ...
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Marine scientists’ letter in the journal Science urges preservation of one of the last coral refuges from climate change An international group of marine scientists led by Karine Kleinhaus, of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), has published a letter in Science that is a call to action for policy makers, government agencies and ocean conservation groups to take major steps to preserve Egypt’s 1800 km of coral reefs– a massive section of the Red Sea’s reef system. Egypt’s reefs generate billions of dollars annually from tourism and tourism-related commerce. The reefs of the northern Red Sea are especially valuable as they constitute one of the world’s few marine refuges from climate change. Almost the entire western coastline of this ref...
Read MoreOxybenzone — a chemical linked to coral bleaching — transforms from a UV-blocking agent into one that damages cells when exposed to light. A common but controversial sunscreen ingredient that is thought to harm corals might do so because of a chemical reaction that causes it to damage cells in the presence of ultraviolet light. Researchers have discovered that sea anemones, which are similar to corals, make the molecule oxybenzone water-soluble by tacking a sugar onto it. This inadvertently turns oxybenzone into a molecule that — instead of blocking UV light — is activated by sunlight to produce free radicals that can bleach and kill corals. “This metabolic pathway that is meant to detoxify is actually making a toxin,” says Djordje Vuckovic, an environmental engineer at Stanford Uni...
Read MoreA small group of Cuban dive instructors, working on a shoe-string budget and with flotsam salvaged from the beach, have launched a small-scale project to grow corals and replant them, in hopes of restoring a patch of Cuba's barrier reef. Luis Muiño, 44, one of the project's leaders, grew up as a fisherman nearby, and said he saw his beloved reefs outside the mouth of Matanzas Harbor, on Cuba's north coast, slowly decline and fish grow scarce over nearly three decades. Professional diver and coral reef conservationist Luis Muino cleans the coral nursery from algae in Playa Coral beach, Cuba April 29, 2022. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini "It's incredible the loss of coral in the past 30 years," Muiño told Reuters. "Our dream is to repopulate again the parts of the barrier reef that ha...
Read MoreA new study led by teams of the Faculty of Biology, the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona, and the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC) of Barcelona has revealed that marine heatwaves associated with the climate crisis are bringing down the populations of coral in the Mediterranean, the biomass of which in some cases has been reduced by 80 to 90%. According to the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, coral populations of the Mediterranean —essential for the functioning of the coral reefs, one of the most emblematic habitats in this sea— could be unable to recover from the recurrent impact of these extreme episodes, with water temperatures reaching high degrees for days and even weeks. This is the first study ...
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