Fiftheenth U.S.C.R.T.F Meeting – Washington D.C
May 4th,
2006
The USCRTF meeting was held in the Department of Commerce
building in the District of Columbia.
Even though this was the short one day meeting held in the spring of each year
there were several important issues to report on related to protecting and
securing our marine ecosystem.
The most important issue was the announcement that both elkhorn
coral ( Acropora palmata ) and staghorn coral ( Acropora cervicornis ) where both
listed under the Endangered Species Act. This will vastly protect these
valuable corals from extinction as they are quickly disappearing in the carribean ecosystem. The panel also heard about an update
to the proposal of designating the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef
Ecosystem as the nations 14th national marine
sanctuary.
There where two very important resolutions brought up and
passed at the meeting. The first of which was that the USCRTF investigate the
use of cyanide and other poisons in the collection of reef fish in the global
market. The US
is the leading importer of marine ornamental fish in the world. The use of
cyanide is illegal in most places however it still remains the easiest to get
and cheapest method to capture reef fish in the wild. Thus the panel was asked
to look into the development and testing of an effective means in identifying
cyanide use and distribute testing equipment to major partners so that we can
cut down on the illegal import of reef fish collected with cyanide and other
poisons. Having laws in most countries banning the use of cyanide but no
effective means to test for these poisons leads to illegal fish being imported
into the markets where such use is illegal.
The second resolution dealt with designating 2008 as the 2nd
“International Year of the Coral Reef”. This event will host several meetings
and many agencies. Most notably is that the United States will host the largest
meeting on coral reef science and management the “International Coral Reef Symposium”
along with 2008 being the ten year anniversary of the United States Coral Reef
Task Force.
The USCRTF heard two imformational
reports at the meeting that are worth noting. The first was on the local action
strategy implementation of the seven different juristictions.
They raised almost 25 million dollars and implemented over 400 conservation
projects. These projects have helped preserve and strengthen many of our worlds coral reef ecosystems.
The most notable report came about the results of many long
months of study on last falls coral reef bleaching event in the carribean. Last year at the fall USCRTF meeting there where
initial reports of almost 90% bleaching in areas. Now while this may be true of
specific areas the report gave us a lot of information both negative but also
positive. Now the degree of bleaching varies by area but the most extensive
report came from the Virgin Islands and is a
good indicator of a good mean average on the severity of this issue. About 45%
of the corals bleached with a resulting action of 13% dieing partially and
about 8% dead completely. Basically what was found that in most areas after the
bleaching that disease took over and helped along with the death of a lot of
the corals. Now while the loss was very extensive it
does also show that while one coral died that one right next to it remained
very heathly which gives us hope about the resiliency
of these remarkable treasures. There will be ongoing studies to see the long
term effects of this bleaching event to better help us maintain, protect and
manage these coral reef ecosystems.
If you have any questions or concerns please email them to industry@masna.org
Sincerily,
Chuck Scannell
