Save The Coral Reefs

Coral Reefs are More Important Than You Realize

Please don't pay attention to my grammar, I only edited and proof-read this once. Please take into consideration what I am about to explain, I have done a lot of research on this and it is a huge problem that we need to fix.

Enjoy- Instagram: Crazy_Purrtato for questions, comments or whatever

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Marine life is responsible for the seafood we eat and the air we breathe. Generally, the ocean is a big factor in the success of the cycle called life. It is our job as intelligent beings to protect these ecosystems even when the extra effort is not in our best interests. In this essay, I will be sharing the importance of sea life and why we need to act fast. Some of these tragic events can and will affect you in your lifetime.

Coral Reefs

Coral reefs are basically the rainforest of the sea and a haven for marine life. You may recall seeing the bright and beautiful rainbow corals in many movies such as Finding Nemo or Finding Dory. These corals are often brimming with different sea-creatures, it is truly a beautiful sight to see. Unfortunately, the path we are walking on will lead to these experiences becoming once in a lifetime, or maybe even a legend. A myth. A folktale that you tell to your children. But why are these corals so important to all life on the planet and why should we care? Corals provide a home for THOUSANDS of plants and animals, an entire ecosystem. About 25% of all sea life resides in or around coral reefs even though the reefs cover less than 1% of the ocean floor. That's kind of a big deal. To think about it in a shelfish prospective(haha), marine life as a whole provides 70% of the oxygen we breathe! Coral is basically like trees, and just as important even though trees only provide 28% of oxygen. They're all important! :) Did you know that if we don't fix anything, all the reefs will die in 30 years. Of course you didn't know- or maybe you did know. The media depicts reefs as big, bright, colorful fish havens. In reality, a lot of reefs are dying out. When they die, they become grey graveyards, and it is truly a horrible picture to see. Coral bleaching is when the coral loses its symbiotic algae that produces its food. This causes the coral to be vulnerable to disease and other threats. Starvation can be a cause for whole colonies of coral to die as well. The opposite, however, can occur. Algae can dominate a coral reef and this domination does not allow for a coral reef to function the way it should. At this point, it is extremely hard to revive the reef. By 2030, in 11 years, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean if we continue to litter the way we do. And by 2050, in 31 years, we will have compromised most, if not all, of marine life. Yikes.

It's important to remember that everything is connected and something that happens across the world can affect your backyard. If you love to breathe, you NEED to care about this. The trophic pyramid includes producers, herbivores, carnivores, secondary carnivores, and apex predators. Each of these five trophic groups are essential in a healthy ecosystem. If one of these Trophic levels becomes irregular, the whole ecosystem will suffer. 70-100 million sharks are killed every year for their skin and fins. In the last 30 years alone, we have wiped out 95% of the world's shark populations. Sharks are a keystone species, so missing these apex predators cause for every species underneath to face dramatic and deadly changes in the long term. The areas that the shark population has decreased, the fish stock populations also crash. If you don't have a predator to pick off weaker animals then overgrazing occurs. The reefs are picked dry and there would be no more food left, which leads the fish to starvation. One topic or cause I won't dive deep into is the chemicals but here we go to scratch the surface to a problem that contributes to the dying reefs. There are huge chemical corporations that form experimental GMO seed. The excess water flows into water outlets that lead into the ocean. In front of those places, the reefs are dead. No fish, no sea urchins, no seaweed, nothing. Everything is dead. This is a turtle from the surrounding area. I don't know what that stuff is or how it got there, but it doesn't look natural to me.

Now let's explore a more lighthearted, but still bad, issue. Sunscreen. In Waikiki, the reefs are dead, almost nonexistent, because of the sunscreen. Chemical sunscreens are a huge threat to marine life surrounding reefs. When these sunscreens wash off when you go for a swim, or when you use those beach showers, that sunscreen water goes into the oceans and kill the reefs. The terrible chemicals include primarily oxybenzone and octinoxate, but studies show, in fact, that all chemicals in chemical sunscreen formulas are harmful. Oxybenzone can cause an adverse effect in coral in 62 parts per trillion. This is the equivalent to one drop of water in 6 ½ olympic sized swimming pools, so guess how much sunscreen enters waters around coral reefs each year. 14,000 TONS

You look at a nice beach and don't think about it any more than how pristine it appears. You never really think about what is underneath the beauty. Everything above water is so green, so tropical, so relaxing, so healthy. However, if you look below, everything is either dead or dying.

So how can we help?Oil, Fossil Fuels, and Coals

These three resources contribute to global warming, and the world has already warmed 1.8 degrees fahrenheit. Half a degree warmer can mean the difference between an ocean with or without coral reefs. By walking to destinations that are in close proximity, you can stop a lot of carbon dioxide from being released into the air.

Sunscreen

28 million pounds of sunscreen is dumped into the oceans every year. Since oxybenzone and octinoxate are the most potent reef killers, we should switch to reef safe sunscreen as it shows on the labels. You can also switch to non nano zinc oxide based sunscreen because the coral cannot absorb the chemicals, so it mitigates any toxicity.

Plastic

Now for my favorite not-so-favorite part of the presentation. Plastics. Plastic is found in every corner of the world. In the deepest sea, the most remote beaches, and even inside living beings. Plastic is found in nearly ¼ of all species, and 70% of marine life. Thats disgusting and shameful. 300 billion TONS of plastic has been produced so far, but only 9% of all plastic is recycled. So if you multiply 300 times 9, it equals 2700. Divide it by 100, you get 27. This means that about only 27 billion tons of plastic has been recycled. More than one million marine animals are killed due to entanglement and/or ingestion. We caused this as a human race, now we need to fix this.

USE LESS PLASTIC. Don't ask for that straw, you're not a baby, you don't need one. Bring your own shopping bags. Bring your own silverware. Don't support plastic products. You are the consumer, you decide what is on the shelves. We vote with our dollar, and you choose what to support. We should lead by example. Our generation was brainwashed to be lazy and do things the easy way not the right way. We need to learn how to do things the way the earth showed us. The earth did not offer us plastic, so we should not use it.