Coral Reef Use and Conservation

Abstract Conservation of coral reefs is primarily concerned with controlling or reducing the levels of fishing or resource extraction and marine pollution. These two factors are considered, by coral reef scientists, to be the main human influences on coral reefs (25). There are, however, a number of other threats to the diversity and function of coral reefs (Table 2.1) but they are less well understood and often uncontrollable at the local or regional level and therefore not amenable to management. For instance, warming of the earth by the burning of fossil and wood fuels may cause the temperature of the oceans to increase beyond a maximum threshold tolerable to corals (10,27) and is, therefore, arguably one of the major threats to the survival of coral reefs. This warming is, however, largely caused by waste emissions from developed countries that do not have coral reefs and is largely ignored or beyond the control of local managers of coral reefs. In contrast, there is mounting evidence that local small-scale fishers are having a major influence on coral reef ecology throughout the tropical oceans and that some of these detrimental effects could be managed or reduced (33). This problem of the scale of threats, their interactions and boundaries, and our recognition of important and manageable threats is an important theme for understanding reef management.