Half of Hawaii
reefs at risk

Human activity
threatens most coral reefs,
and the isles' are worst in
the Pacific, a study finds

By Pete Pichaske
Star-Bulletin

WASHINGTON -- Coral reefs in the Pacific tend to be in better shape than reefs elsewhere, but Hawaii's reefs tend to be in worse shape than other Pacific reefs, according to the first global assessment of coral reefs.

"Hawaii is a very interesting case," said Lauretta Burke, co-author of the "Reefs at Risk" study released here today by the World Resources Institute, an international environmental group.

"Off the larger, windward islands to the southeast, the reefs are fairly stressed, mainly by runoff and coastal development," she explained. But the reefs off the northwest islands "are in very good shape. They're some of the most protected on the planet."

Burke and other researchers spent more than a year surveying coral reefs worldwide, assessing their health risk based on four factors: coastal development; marine pollution; overfishing; and inland pollution and erosion.

They found that 58 percent of reefs worldwide are potentially threatened by human activity, that overfishing is the greatest threat, and that the reefs of Southeast Asia are both the most species-rich and the most threatened in the world.

In the Pacific, which has more reefs than any other area, 41 percent of the reefs are threatened. The report attributed that lower percentage to the fact that Pacific reefs tend to be more isolated than those in other areas.

The huge Great Barrier Reef off Australia is very well protected, for example, as are most reefs off smaller Pacific isles.

Many Hawaiian reefs are not quite as fortunate. The report found that 46 percent of Hawaii's 1,200 square kilometers of reefs are at medium or high risk.

The worst of the isles' reefs, according to the report, were off the coasts of Oahu, Maui and Molokai, and the northeast coast of the Big Island.

According to the report: "The most serious threats relate to rapid population growth and urbanization, leading to sewage discharges, additional construction, overuse, overfishing, industrial discharges, and port development and operations."

While government regulations have helped, "overfishing and water-quality degradation from nonpoint sources and sewage will continue to be serious if not growing threats to the reefs," the report found.

Bay reefs, such as in Oahu's Kaneohe Bay, are "particularly vulnerable to urban-related development," the report found.

The report comes on the heels of both national and local conferences on coral reefs, which environmentalists have likened, in significance and threatened status, to tropical rain forests.

Jim Maragos, who organized the recent conference in Hawaii and helped write "Reefs at Risk," said the report puts Hawaii's problems in a global context.

"People in Hawaii have tunnel vision about the status of reefs," said Maragos, a senior fellow in the East-West Center's Program on the Environment.

The report "gives us some good perspective globally as to where the problems are."

While many of Hawaii's reefs face serious threats, noted Maragos, there is still no consensus on what to do about them.

The recent Hawaii conference, he said, was a start at devising a plan to protect the state's reefs.