Why we need to protect the great barrier reef? |
Posted: June 27, 2018 |
The great barrier reef is under an immense threat from human activity and is decreasing at an alarming rate. Efforts must therefore be made to stop the gradual destruction of the reef before it is too late. The reef is of great importance to science, the planet, and most importantly all the wildlife that inhabits it. Keeping that in mind, here then are five reasons as to why it is important to protect the great barrier reef: 1) Giant leaps made in coral DNA research Despite its continual destruction, interestingly, coral reefs are making a slow comeback. And while the comeback doesn’t mean we can keep apathetically treating the environment with disregard and carelessness, it does mean that scientists can study coral to learn how it is able to comeback after big environmental disasters. For instance, scientists have managed to decode the DNA for Porites lutea which is a massive coral builder, along with 8 other coral genomes that are able to make good comebacks. The hope for outlining the genomes for different types of coral is that it will help with medical treatments and therapies like what happened the human genome sequence was completed. However in order to document the great barrier reef’s DNA structure there needs to be some of it left to document! 2) The effect of dumping waste on the reef The great barrier reef is home to some 1,500 different species of fish, 134 different types of shark and 6/7 of the world’s most endangered turtles which all live in symbiotic relationships with each other and with the reef that they all coexist with. However due to the effects of dumping waste into the sea, the members of these species have all come under threat from the dredges of toxic pollution that arises from some the careless disposal of waste by certain companies and countries. 3) It’s one of the biggest homes to marine-based lives The great barrier reef is one of the largest living entity on the planet. So big in fact that it is known as one of the seven wonders of the world and can be seen from outer space. Thus if humans continue with their reckless attitudes to the reef and the reef’s environment,then we are unwittingly killing off and destroying one of the biggest organisms on the planet are well as all the life that lives symbiotically alongside it so it needs to be protected. 4) Climate change effects on the reef The rate at which carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere is happening at an unprecedented level, in fact there is more CO2 in the air now than there has been for the past 800,000 years. CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas that traps a layer of heat around the earth. This effect of global warming can then have a negative impact on the great barrier reef as increased temperatures can lead to coral bleaching. This is where the algae that lives symbiotically within the coral reef is expelled from its natural habitat and left to fend for itself. 5) So just how big is the reef anyway? The reef is huge, and a lot of life will be lost if it is destroyed. To put it into perspective the reef is the size of 70 million football fields which is also about the size of Japan or Italy. In total the great barrier reef marine park is 344,400 km squared so that means that if the reef is lost then many of the reef’s former inhabitants will also die off which would be a colossal ecocide given how big the reef is.
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