I just watched a TED talk entitled How We Wrecked the Ocean by Jeremy Jackson. It paints an even more depressing picture of the situation of the world's oceans than I want to believe but he speaks the truth if something is not changed soon.
He talked about the coral reefs in Jamaica that were the most studied reefs in the 1970s. These reefs did not have any fish due to overfishing. After a major hurricane, all of the corals died, and now there is nothing but seaweed growing. I don't believe that all of the world's fisheries and coral reefs are doomed. I think that in the Dominican Republic, reefs are relatively healthy. In the reefs that we surveyed in Miches, there were still fish and there were several beautiful large expanses of large coral reefs. However, the same problems that were present in Jamaica are there as well. Water quality in Miches has decreased because of the increased sedimentation of the water, preventing sunlight from reaching the corals for photosynthesis; there is rampant overfishing, which reduces the number of grazers that keep seaweed from overgrowing the corals; and toxic algal blooms makes the trade of top predators such as the barrucuda forbidden but does not prevent the locals from consuming them for lack of food.
Depressing stuff.
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