The Importance Of Coral Reefs

The charity that I am researching for my compassion project is the Coral Reef Alliance. The cause of this charity is to help save coral reefs from dying. Overfishing, poor water quality, climate change and other harms are what they are trying to stop. Coral reefs are a big part of the ecosystem and must be saved. They contain lots of types of coral and a lot of different animal species. The grooves in coral reefs give good hiding places for fish and other underwater species. Coral reefs are also known as the “rainforests of the ocean.” I like a quote from the book The Sixth Extinction,”Corals build the architecture of the ecosystem, so it’s pretty clear if they go, the whole ecosystem goes.”

Coral is a type of invertebrate that is made up of lots of polyps and they grow very slowly. They are related to sea anemones and jelly fish. Coral gets its color from zooxanthellae (zoh-oh-zan-thell-ee), which is algae. Climate change and pollution can cause stress on the algae, which could lead to coral bleaching. Coral bleaching is when the coral turns white. Coral lives in tropical waters throughout the world. They take up less than 1% of the worlds surface. The biggest coral reef in the world is the Great Barrier Reef which is in Australia. Coral reefs are home to 25% of marine life such as sponges, sea slugs, oysters, crabs, shrimp, sea worms, starfish, sea urchins, sea anemones, sea turtles and a lot of species of fish.

The Coral Reef Alliance goes to six different locations (Fiji, Hawaii, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico and Palmyra) to improve reef management, reduce local reef threats and help communities benefit. This cause exists because of the warming and rising seas, the ocean acidification, overfishing, water ...

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... lived in the ocean. You can also be a responsible snorkeler, diver, swimmer or whale watcher.

Coral reefs are very important! There are many books, educational movies and people who are trying to make the world be aware of the problems in our oceans. Anyone can start to help save the reefs by trying to stop all the harms that affect them and try to start using more energy efficient materials. Please take some time to learn more about how we can start taking care of the coral reefs and the many animal species that live in them. It is really fascinating. Another quote from the The Sixth Extinction is,”If you don’t have a building, where are the tenants going to go?” said Jack Silverman. This means that if there aren’t any coral reef, where will all of the animals in them go? That is something to really think about even in our oceans, which then affects our world.