How Are Coral Reefs Being Destroyed?
We do many things to coral reefs that are devastating them. We pollute them with sewage, oil products,
fertilizers, and pesticides. We mine and fish them with explosive devices.
We over fish and dump chemicals into the water to improve our catch.
They get smothered by sediment and silt that run into the oceans due to
erosion from logging, land use and development. When people visit reefs they run their boats over them
and drop anchors and step on them. We also chop them down for jewelry and trinkets.
Nitrogen runoff is deadly to reefs because it helps algae to grow and bloom out of control. The algae
takes the nutrients the coral needs to live, and then the coral begins to die. If the coral dies,
then the whole ecosystem collapses.
This is what happens when reefs are dynamited.
This is blackband, a type of disease corals get because of pollution.
Humans are the coral reefs number one threat. The reason that they are getting sick
and dying is because of our interference. If we do not do something to stop this, all
of the reefs will be gone and we will lose everything that provide us with. This is something
that we can not affort to let happen.