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Coral reefs and mangroves are critical components of the marine environment. These biologically rich habitats provide important ecosystem services to local and regional economies, including tourism, shoreline protection, and fisheries. Coral reefs supply much of the sand for the region’s beautiful beaches, and draw divers and snorkelers to explore the diversity of marine life that they support. Stretching along great lengths of Caribbean coastline, reef and mangrove ecosystems also provide a natural barrier that protects the land from the worst ravages of tropical storms. As reefs and mangroves degrade and disappear, these services are diminished, resulting in economic losses to coastal communities.

www.wri.org/...valuation-caribbean-reefs - Preview

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Corals are being covered and smothered to death by a bushy seaweed that is so tough even algae-grazing fish avoid it. It settles in the reef’s crevices that fish once called home, driving them away.

Dead coral stops supporting the ecosystem and, within a couple of decades, it will crumble into rubble, allowing big ocean waves to reach the beach during storms and destroy the flimsy thatched huts of the Micronesians.

“We are catching less and less fish, and the seaweeds are fouling our nets,” says Henry Totie, a fisherman and Butaritari’s traditional chief, in an interview in his traditionally built house in the village near the blue-green lagoon.

www.nytimes.com/...08seaw.html - Preview

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