Marine life could take centuries to recover from killer waves

[lovuian]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1540&ncid=1540&e=1&u=/afp/20041231/sc_afp/asiaquakeenvironment_041231023839

Marine life could take centuries to recover from killer waves

Thu Dec 30, 9:38 PM ET Science - AFP



HONG KONG (AFP) - Beaches around South Asia devastated by tsunamis could be restored to their former glory within a few years, but the marine life through which the huge waves passed could take centuries to recover, experts say.






Coral reefs, mangroves, fish and other marine life had been damaged by the tsunamis which rose out of the Indian Ocean on Sunday, triggered by a massive earthquake near the Indonesian island of Sumatra.


The disaster has left more than 119,000 people dead and up to five million displaced in the region, with Indonesia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka the worst affected countries.


"It is so hard to say in brief, but the level of devastation of coastal areas by the disaster is obvious," director of Conservation International in the Indonesian resort island of Bali, Ketut Sarjana Putra, said.


"It will take a long time to recover."

more...

The coral reefs were damaged How devastating!!!

[Dr Fate]

1. And the Republican spin will be: "Nature is as bad for fish as pollution."

The same logic as "Volcanoes & cow flatulnence causes more pollution than industries..."

You watch- this will be the conservative spin on this- and Liberals/Democrats wont do shit to counter-act it either.

[bahrbearian]

2. I kind of doubt that.

Mt. St Helens is an example of how nature can repair herself. Maybe not the same flora, or geography, but a repair. Some other displaced organism will replaced another.

[arcos]

10. I've read that the same happens near Chernobyl...

although radiation levels are still very high, reports say there's abundant wildlife, something scientists never expected.

[mcscajun]

3. Not minimizing at all the human catastrophe here...

...I couldn't possibly -- I wouldn't be able to sleep if I did...But.

Damage or loss of the coral reefs is devastating in a certain frame of reference; coral reefs are the 'rainforests' of the oceans. They are vital habitat for lifeforms at the base of the marine food web, and they are so incredibly fragile and take a long time to recover lost growth.

[DS1]

4. Agreed. Original poster is obviously ignorant to the value of coral

:shrug:

[7th_Sephiroth]

5. how bad will this impact the fish market

will fish prices be going up in the supermarket?

[shanti]

6. shrimp

will go up too. most shrimp comes from thailand, etc.

[7th_Sephiroth]

7. this looks like a job for

FORREST GUMP!!!!

[ForrestGump]

8. You called?

Actually, I have a significant degree of background in this stuff, and it's true that dismissing concern over damage to reefs and associated habitats is shortsightedness born of ignorance. All else aside, including factors associated with biodiversity and spinoff benefits to humankind, consider these two points:

(i) Coral reefs -- mangroves, too -- are the best form of erosional prevention in tropical coastal zones. Barrier reefs and the like diminish the force of wave action on precious land in island states and other coastal areas and directly prevent flooding and regular wave damage as well as erosion of coastline. After one of the hurricanes that I endured on an island that was my home for a while I took a quick look at the coast and was hardly surprised to see that areas stripped of mangroves were signifcantly eaten away and undermined by wave action whereas those that still featured mangrove were barely altered at all. Just like in the textbooks. In the Maldives, where coral mining has been rampant, routine flooding of entire islands is likely a direct result of removal of protecting reefs (well, that and sea-level rise). In other words, these devastated coastal areas in southern Asia are made more vulnerable when reefs and such habitats are damaged.

(ii) What do you think that the surviving population is going to eat? Throughout that region, many people are subsistence fishers and reef/lagoon/mangrove fishes form the bulk of their protein intake. Interrupt recruitment of fishes and the habitats in which they grow toward adult size and you'll be starving a lot of people.

Pointing out potential and actual effects on reefs and the like does not minimize the basically inconceivable human loss caused by these waves. It's not and either-or situation and anyone who sees it as such is, at best, naive.

On the bright side, reports that I've received from dive operators in the Indian Ocean and Indonesia and from some scientists in the region indicate that most of the reefs and fish assemblages in many locales are basically okay. Coral reefs are fragile, yes, but they can also be surprisingly resilient. What they're most vulnerable to are the more insidious effects of human activity -- much (most, really) of which can ultimately be traced back to sheer greed. Catastrophic acute episodes like hurricanes and, apparently, tsunamis seem far less a threat in the long run, certainly on the scale at which the real destruction of marine habitats has been and is being wrought by Homo sapiens f***witticus.

And that's all I have to say about that...

[SOteric]

9. Dang!

All that charm and the dude is smart, too. Who-da-thunk.

*snerk* "Homo sapiens fuckwitticus" *snerk*