Coral reefs are solid structures built from the remains of small marine organisms, mostly a group of colony forming animals called stony corals (Cousteau and American Museum of Natural History, 2014). Coral reefs are some of the most complex ecosystems, but also one of the most vulnerable. They are heavily utilized, economically valuable, and subject to human exploitation because of the jewelry and aquarium trade. Their vulnerability is a result of anthropogenic causes such as coastal pollution, uncontrolled coastal development, diving tourism, and coral collecting practices. One of the most destructive fishing practices that can kill or cause bleaching of large areas of a reef is the use of sodium cyanide to stun and catch ornamental fish for the aquarium trade (Bale, 2016). Due to the substantial size of reefs, it is hard for researchers to obtain exact percentages without a controlled experiment.
Cyanide poisoning is popular where population and economic stress lead to a state of competitiveness among coastal villagers for money (McManus, Reyes, Nan ̃ Ola, 1997, p. 69-70) and environmental damage the people have inflicted on the reefs can lead to an environmental collapse (Timmerman, n.d). Consequently, the aquarium trade is a multi-billion dollar industry including more than 125 countries (Dey, 2016). There is an un-contended willingness to destroy reefs for personal profit; thus the reefs are exploited for short term gain without acknowledging the long-term damage that will occur to people. Reefs arenatural barriers, cancelling out 97% of a wave's strength and protecting more than 200 million people (Sharma and Rilley, 2018), without this entire populations would be wiped out. Building seawalls for the same protection would cost $2.5 million per mile (Tech Insider, 2018).
By: Sarika Ganguli
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