Without healthy coral, there are no healthy oceans. One-quarter of the ocean's fish depend on coral reefs staying healthy, whether it be for food, shelter, or nesting. While most of the damage is a result of rising temperatures and bleaching events, the fishing industry is another major threat to our coral reefs.
Oceanographer Anuar Abdullah and his team are on a mission to counteract the damage done by local fishermen around the island of Kyun Pila, according to storytelling platform Climate Heroes.
The biggest danger to coral reefs are man-made threats like overfishing, dynamite fishing, and plastic pollution — all of which can be fixed with changes in behavior and local legislation. But until those occur, Abdullah and other volunteers are working to protect the ecosystem in the most biodiverse marine area in the world.
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Definitely 👍 Abdullah has been an oceanographer for 40 years but only started clearing ghost nets in 2019. Ghost nets are abandoned fishing nets that get entangled with the reef and trap wildlife.
Clearing ghost nets around Kyun Pila is no small feat as it requires a long boat journey and an expert-level diving specialty to work underwater, while the risk of doing such dangerous work is high when the nearest hospital is more than three hours away, as noted by Climate Heroes.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, ghost nets and other abandoned fishing gear are responsible for up to 1 million tons of waste in the ocean every year. Nets are estimated to be 46% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, according to Sea Shepherd.
Alongside clearing ghost nets, Abdullah and his organization, Ocean Quest, are working on coral propagation, specifically in Maya Bay in Phi Phi Island. After Maya Bay was featured in Leonardo DiCaprio's movie "The Beach," it got flooded with tourists. The coral was dying to the point where the government had to close the beach to ensure the coral could regrow and marine life would return.
Ninety percent of the world's coral is in danger of disappearing by 2050, according to the World Wildlife Fund. But with more funding, research, and volunteers, that doesn't have to be its fate.
In an interview with Climate Heroes, Abdullah said, "People should get involved with any kind of conservation. Not just the coral reef…if these places are damaged then we have nothing left."
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