Coral reefs in the Florida Keys

ABSTRACT
In the Florida Keys, there is so much amazing beautiful scenery, such as coral reefs, fishes, sea turtles, and other species. Every year, many tourists travel to the Keys to enjoy these beautiful things. Unfortunately, these beautiful marine lives are under danger because their home, coral reefs are dying. The main reasons for` dying coral are overfishing, pollutions, overfishing, habitat destruction, sedimentation, sewage discharge, eutrophication, oil pollution, outbreak of sea anemone, coral bleaching, and over-development on coast. These threats are from human activities that damaged the coral reefs ecosystem and had already caused a lot of coral reefs to die. So, we need to do some things to protect the valuab0.le coral reefs. For example, tourists should pay the fee for cleaning beach, and sea. Everyone can do some thing for decreasing greenhouse gases to reduce global effect. Such as, avoiding use fuel that can reduce carbon dioxide. Laws can be made more effective to ban pollutions into sea and overfishing.

Body

Coral reefs are important to our life and marine life because they are the home of many million fishes and other species. Coral reefs with fishes and other species make a coral reefs ecosystem. There are not only many maritime living organisms which depend on coral reefs, but also human tourism industries and seafood industries depend on coral reefs for the economic benefits. In addition, part of the function of coral reefs is preventing the shoreline from being destroyed from "tropical storm waves" (Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, 2001, par.10), which can reduce land's soil into the sea. Unfortunately, human activities cause many impacts that threaten coral health, such as ships hit coral reefs. For example, in 1993 to 1994, there were about 500 ships grounding in the Florida Keys. (Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, 2001, par. 10). In the Florida Keys, there are more than "three million people who visit the keys" every year (Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, 2001, par. 10), because many tourists like the clean water and beautiful coral reefs and fishes. But too many tourists cause local residents to build more ships, ports, and other facilities for entertainments, which had cause coral reefs to face that threat. There are some reasons causing coral dying in the Florida Key, including water pollution, urban development, introduced species, overfishing, boating, global climate change or global warming, diseases and coral bleaching, such as "the sea temperatures globally in 1998 were high. And 1998 was the worst year ever recorded globally for coral bleaching," which was caused by global warming, caused many coral reefs to die in the world (Segelken, 1999, par. 9&11).

The Florida Keys depend on many beautiful coral reefs that bring to the local economy things such as tourism and food industries, and it is one of the Earth's most important ecosystem, but recent years the Keys coral death has been occurring so suddenly and rapidly, we should get to the bottom of the dying coral reef ecosystems. Because of human actives such as pollutions, overfishing, over developed...etc, most of coral are dying from tern temperature change, coral bleaching, and diseases. So, there are some things we should do to protection coral reefs ecosystem, such as decreasing pollutions from farmlands, industries, and domestic water. First, educating the local residents and tourists is a good way to protecting coral reefs ecosystems. Secondly, making strong laws and enforce is not only protecting coral reefs and decrease number of ships around the areas of coral reefs, but also brings some benefits for fishermen and tourists. Moreover, there are some things anyone can do for improving coral reefs predicaments, such as avoiding puts pollutants and sewage into sea, reducing uses fuel sewage for decreasing carbon dioxide in greenhouse gases.

To begin with, we should know how important the coral reef ecosystem is. In economy, local residents earn the money from tourists who come to the Keys for looking and playing clean seawater, and amazing coral reefs and fishes. If humans destroyed the coral ecological balance, may be the Florida Keys would not have people willing to come. According to the article of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, coral reefs offer habitat and foods for several hundred species of marine lives, such as fishes, and sea turtles. On the other hand, because of a coral ecological imbalance, if coral reefs don't have good health or die, and then many fishes and other species would leave or died. At the same time, the Keys will not attract tourists who come again. According to the news writer of States News Service, coral reefs supply about "$375 billion to the world economy or more $3 billion to Florida per year from recreation, tourism, food, pharmaceuticals, and other purposes" (2004, par. 1), so the coral reefs are very important to the coastal economical future.

In the marine ecosystem, there are many marine lives whose life depends on coral reefs or has cooperation relationship. For example, "A complex of microscopic plants", which are called "tiny algae or zooxanthellae, lives in coral tissues, offers the energy or oxygen to coral reefs "from photosynthesis", and these kinds of plants are getting nutrients from animal wastes (Florida department of Environmental Protection, 2005, par. 3). According to the article of Coral Reefs Alliance, "Coral Bleaching", "zoozanthellae" has some dyes and lets coral to become colorful, so when coral became white that shows the coral under threatened and probably would die (2002, par. 1). These threats are caused by the local chemical pollutions from industries and agriculture, sediment and flood from rivers, outbreak of sea anemone, and temperature change etc. (Coral Reefs Alliance, 2003, par. 2). However, there reasons were mostly from human activities, the global warming already happen and caused a lot coral reefs death on global coral bleaching event in 1998 (Segelken, 1999, par. 9&11). When the coral reefs dies, then fish will lose their home, and then the Florida Keys will quickly decease their economy from the commercial fishing because it "bring many millions of dollars to the state" every year ((Florida department of Environmental Protection, 2005, par. 4). So, local people should control their pollutions and avoid dumping into rivers and sea are necessary. Also, all humans can do some thing to decrease carbon dioxide into air, and decrease greenhouse gases, such as don't burn fuel and wood. Protecting coral reefs ecosystem is protecting earth and other life.
Moreover, over fishing is a serious problem, because it will lead to the imbalance of the coral reef ecosystem. Fishermen caught too many fish and other maritime species to satisfied their demand, but that would cause not only plants to lose nutrients from animals, but also coral reefs loss balance from coral reefs ecosystem. According to the article of Courrege, a great threat is to the coral reef ecosystem overfishing because fishermen caught the "plant-eating fish" causes more algae, which can demolish coral reefs (2002, par. 4), because it needs enough sunlight, but too many algae cover the surface of seawater. So, fishermen should avoid overfishing in order to keep and sustain the health of coral reefs ecosystem. Particular fishing practices are causing damage, because fishermen used some destructive methods to catch more fishes, such as trawl destroyed coral reefs, and bursting fishes for easing to collect fishes. According to article by Campbell, some fishermen use "cyanide to stun the fish" and catch a lot fishes for earning money from "aquarium industry", but the cyanide can destroy the coral life or degradation (2002, par. 16). On the other hand, the fisherman thinks about "setting up reserves" which were "taking away their livelihood", but the senior director with Conservation International's marine division thinks marine reserves will benefit to coral reefs and other areas (Campbell, 2002, par, 23). I think catching fish without coral reef areas that is a best way to protect the coral reefs from fisherman's destroy and overfishing, because it can keep coral reef ecosystem in the better condition without fisherman's destroying it and make ecological balance for fish and coral reefs, and than other areas around the marine reserves will have more and more fish to live. So, it also benefits to fishermen.
Fishermen should keep the coral ecosystem sustainable, by catching as many fishes as they need, because decreasing yields are necessary for keeping a balance of the coral ecosystem, because coral reefs are main habitats of fishes and other maritime species. According to Bowles, C., in his article, he mentions Grego Hodgson (director of the Reef Check Foundation in LA) who said "the two biggest causes of coral death are still overfishing and climate change" (2002, par5). So, strong laws should been made for restricting fishermen.

Too many recreation boats and fishermen caused many coral reefs to die and the imbalance of the coral ecosystem, and the laws didn't protect the coral reefs. For example, "the 1996 Magnuson-Stevens Act will reduce penalties and regulations for overfishing, making it harder to prosecute people who overfish" (Courrege, 2002, par. 14), this kind of laws seems to protect the fisherman, but not coral reefs. So, people should look at the fact of the laws if are really protecting the coral reefs and improving the serious problem of overfishing. Furthermore, there are many cases of boats hitting coral reefs in the Florida Keys, which cause many coral reefs damage. According to article of Courrege, fishing boats had increased "from 37,435 in 1964 to 166,343 boats in 1998, increased rate of 344 percent in South Florida", and among these boats had "667 boats damaging coral reefs in the Florida Keys in 2001" (2002, Par. 11&12).

Laws should be made to strongly limit and be strictly enforced the overdevelopment and overfishing in the Florida Keys for protecting coral reefs. Because of the Florida Keys are a tourist attraction, a lot of local people and tourist industry's life depend the tourists. So in the Keys developed many travel service, such as airport, ports and hotels that can threaten the coral reefs. For example, wastewater and sewage from hotel through river into sea impacts coral and fish health. I think that marine life must have clean seawater because fishes get disease, and then human eat them that also damage to human health. The Florida Keys seems too crowded because there are "three million people who visit the keys, and more than 80,000 people who live full time" (Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, 2001, par. 10), in the small area with many people cause many pollution. So, people should make a law and strictly enforce to reducing developments and pollutions in the Keys. For example, tourists must pay the money to the Florida government when they go to and play at the beach. And the money can be used on cleaning pollutions on the sea. Also, tourist industries should pay money to government for using on marine researches and reducing pollutions into the sea, such as waste water processing stations that is only protecting marine lives, but also river's lives.

Finally, reducing human activities can be less threatening to coral reefs ecosystem, such ship drives through shallow waters along the coast of coral reefs areas, and divers should learn how to avoid harming the coral reefs. For example, "snorkelers standing on coral and destructive fishing methods" (Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, 2001, par. 10). So I think that fisherman, snorkelers and divers should learn about how to care for coral reefs. Moreover, human sewage and chemical pollution can cause coral reefs getting diseases. For example, researchers of University of Illinois found the unhealthy coral reefs, which included some "metals such as aluminum, cadmium and zinc, are common pollutants from oil refineries", they think these pollutant may be a main reason of causing coral to get disease (Kloppel, 2001, par. 3). In 1975, a lot of oil had been spilled about "26 miles" around the Florida Keys, which caused coral reefs were covered by oil, and some "pearl oyster, black mangroves, and other speices" (Evans, Scott, & Davison, 2001, p. 60).

There are some things humans have to do for protecting the coral reef ecosystem, such as reducing use fuel, decreasing boats, cleaning rivers, decreasing pollutions into sea, and cleaning sewage. Also tourists shouldn't bring coral to their home and stand on coral reefs. The governments should make more conservation areas for coral reef ecosystem, and laws to limited fishermen. Also, coast areas should stop to overdevelop. If we can decrease greenhouse gases which can not only survive coral reefs and fishes, but also survive Earth's lives.

In conclusion, coral reefs are very important things for human life and marine life, so we should protect them from human impact, such as overfishing, pollution, overfishing, habitat destruction, sedimentation, sewage discharge, eutrophication, oil pollution, outbreak of sea anemone, coral bleach. Stopping over-development is the better way for protecting coral reefs. By keeping coral reefs ecosystem can be sustainable now, and we can see and eat marine species forever. Also we can take a trip to Florida any time because coral reefs will be there.

Bibliography
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