[NO REEF] NO TREASURE
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• Fisheries Habitat – Corals build the reef structure, and structure is essential for fish to breed and grow. Ultimately, reefs help ensure food security via the $1+ Billion dollar commercial and recreational fishing industries. • Tourism – Coral reefs are the main economic driver in coastal coral reef communities like the Florida Keys. In fact, studies show that the economy from Martin to Monroe County is significantly linked to our coral reefs – annual providing over 71k jobs and $6 billion in sales and income. • Biomedical Research – Drugs developed from reef organisms are already on the market to combat cancer, pain, and inflammation. • Lifestyle – Coastal living is southeast FL’s way of life – making our reefs priceless. Our reefs are extremely valuable because they are adjacent to one of the most densely populated and highly urbanized coastal communities in the U.S. – more than 6 million residents and 38 million visitors annually. This represents both the imperative and the challenge of protecting reefs as part of our ‘coastal infrastructure’. Corals only thrive within a relatively narrow range of water clarity, salinity and temperature conditions. Their health also depends on the presence of herbivores (fish and urchins) and apex predators (sharks, groupers and other big fish) which collectively keep the reef free of excess algae and in balance with local nutrients. Unfortunately, these conditions are being compromised on reefs around the globe, and Florida is no exception. Globally, a significant increase in the frequency and severity of extreme thermal events (both hot and cold water) has led to mass die offs of corals around the world. Additionally, as our coastal and ocean waters become acidified, corals won’t be able to grow their calcium carbonate skeletons and the reef framework itself will start eroding. As these global events are increasing in frequency and severity, it challenges us to more effectively reduce or eliminate the things we can control – the local stressors! Reducing land-based sources of pollution, incompatible fishing practices and fishing pressure, 10 Winter 2019 / Florida Planning
and eliminating impacts from vessel groundings, dragged anchors and marine debris have long been advocated by the Florida Reef Resilience Program, with support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Coral Reef Conservation Program. These are, in fact, the focus of a new Respect Our Reef public outreach campaign aimed at divers and anglers. Unfortunately, with these stressors combined, our reefs reached a breaking point in 2014. Beginning in Fall 2014, an outbreak of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) started offshore of Miami-Dade County. As of 2018, over half of the 330-mile Florida Reef Tract has been affected – approximately 90,000 acres from Martin County to the Lower Florida Keys. SCTLD is unique in that it has continued for over 4 years and is impacting over half of the reef building coral species. Up to 66-90% of the entire population in certain species are infected; observations show that once a coral is infected, the disease kills the entire colony within weeks to months. In response, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and NOAA has led the coordination of numerous partners from federal, state, and local governments, universities, nongovernmental organizations, and the South Florida community in an open and collaborative multi-faceted disease investigation and response effort. DEP has been allocated $3 million since 2017 to fund priority research associated with offshore water quality conditions and response to the ongoing coral disease outbreak. These funds have been used for priority response actions such as: • Strategically sampling, analyzing, and experimenting to better understand the disease dynamics and attempt to identify a pathogen (or pathogens); • Investigating whether changes in environmental conditions may have caused or contributed to the outbreak; • Exploring and deploying in-water management interventions to try slow or stop the continued spread of coral disease; continued on page 11