WORLD REEF AWARENESS DAY 2022

World Reef Awareness Day is celebrated in 1st of june. this is the 4th annual World Reef Day,which serves as a call to action to raise awareness about the critically important benefits of healthy coral reef ecosystems.World Reef Awareness Day is a holiday that desperately encourages everyone to reflect on the state of coral reefs and how human activity has caused massive destruction to them. Approximately half of the world’s coral reefs have already been severely damaged or destroyed and if that trend continues, then approximately 75% of them will be threatened by 2050...

Coral reefs are among the world’s most diverse ecosystems. They provide shelter and food for 25 percent of all marine life. Across the globe, about 500 million people depend on coral reefs for food and income. Through recreation and tourism, reefs generate billions of dollars for coastal communities every year.

The future is uncertain for coral reef ecosystems. Global warming is set to continue for decades, or even centuries, and a hotter world will be a difficult place for coral reefs to exist.As they can survive only 20-22 degrees,neither too hot nor too cold harm coral life. Experts around the world are urgently studying how corals are responding to rising temperatures .

Beyond climate change, coral reefs are under an enormous amount of strain from human activities, such as extreme fishing, plastic pollution, and sedimentation. One of the greatest dangers to corals is ocean acidification, which corrodes coral skeletons and causes them to dissolve. To make matters worse, as CO2 levels rise, corals have fewer carbonate ions to rebuild and strengthen their skeletons.

“Coral reefs support more species than any other marine environment and rival rainforests in their biodiversity. Countless numbers of creatures rely on coral reefs for their survival. These important habitats are threatened by a range of human activities,” reports NOAA.

HISTORY OF WORLD REEF AWARENESS DAY

The oldest corals appeared about 500 million years ago or even earlier. Researchers suggest that they began as plain, solitary organisms and, with time and constant environmental changes, transformed into the beautiful coral reefs that exist today.

During an ice age around 440 million years ago, sea temperatures dropped at an exponential rate and a large number of corals began diminishing from the ocean. This is called the Ordovician-Silurian Extinction Event.

Around 410 million years ago, in the Devonian period, corals began to appear again. During the end of this period, stony corals started growing, which were a rare form of reef back then. Then, around 350 million years ago, corals disappeared again due to unstable sea levels.

100 million years later, corals appeared once again only to be wiped out once more by the Permian-Triassic Extinction 250 million years ago, where over 90% of sea creatures were affected. Reduced oxygen levels and increased carbon dioxide in the sea caused this tragic extinction event.

After disappearing and reappearing for another few million years, coral reefs finally reappeared 46 million years ago and disappeared for the last time during the mid-Eocene era. 20 million years later, they finally made a comeback in the form of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, which was found by British explorer Captain James Cook in 1770.

Lately, some of the most beneficial reefs have been diminishing because of coral blanching, rising ocean temperatures, and toxic pollution. Moreover, the use of harmful sunscreens and increased tourism are also considered threats to the well-being of the coral reefs.