ConservationResilience: Difference between revisions
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Directly, protected areas conserve coral reefs by barring off unwanted disturbances. With legislation and enforcement, setting up effective conservation zones can help protect reefs from threats such as littering, certain types of pollution, and other human activities. | Directly, protected areas conserve coral reefs by barring off unwanted disturbances. With legislation and enforcement, setting up effective conservation zones can help protect reefs from threats such as littering, certain types of pollution, and other human activities. | ||
However, arguably more importantly, protected areas conserve reefs indirectly by enhancing reef resilience. Resilience is the ability of an ecosystem to bounce back from a disturbance without drastically changing.<ref name="holling">[Holling, C S. “Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, vol. 4, no. 1, 1973, pp. 1–23., doi:10.1146/annurev.es.04.110173.000245.]</ref> In the long term, protected areas enhance reef resilience by preserving ecosystem complexity and maintaining the populations of important functional groups, such as herbivorous fish, <ref name="salm">[Salm, Rodney V., et al. “Marine Protected Area Planning in a Changing Climate.” Coral Reefs and Climate Change: Science and Management Coastal and Estuarine Studies, 2006, pp. 207–221., doi:10.1029/61ce12.]</ref><ref name="bellwood">[Bellwood, D. R., et al. “Confronting the Coral Reef Crisis.” Nature, vol. 429, no. 6994, 2004, pp. 827–833., doi:10.1038/nature02691.]</ref><ref name="cumming">[Cumming, Graeme S., et al. “New and Emerging Directions in Coral Reef Conservation.” Biological Conservation, vol. 241, 2020, p. 108372., doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108372.]</ref> | However, arguably more importantly, protected areas conserve reefs indirectly by enhancing reef resilience. Resilience is the ability of an ecosystem to bounce back from a disturbance without drastically changing.<ref name="holling">[Holling, C S. “Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, vol. 4, no. 1, 1973, pp. 1–23., doi:10.1146/annurev.es.04.110173.000245.]</ref> In the long term, protected areas enhance reef resilience by preserving ecosystem complexity and maintaining the populations of important functional groups, such as herbivorous fish, <ref name="salm">[Salm, Rodney V., et al. “Marine Protected Area Planning in a Changing Climate.” Coral Reefs and Climate Change: Science and Management Coastal and Estuarine Studies, 2006, pp. 207–221., doi:10.1029/61ce12.]</ref><ref name="bellwood">[Bellwood, D. R., et al. “Confronting the Coral Reef Crisis.” Nature, vol. 429, no. 6994, 2004, pp. 827–833., doi:10.1038/nature02691.]</ref><ref name="cumming">[Cumming, Graeme S., et al. “New and Emerging Directions in Coral Reef Conservation.” Biological Conservation, vol. 241, 2020, p. 108372., doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108372.]</ref> which protects reefs from [[Bleaching|bleaching]].<ref name="mellin">[Mellin, Camille, et al. “Marine Protected Areas Increase Resilience among Coral Reef Communities.” Ecology Letters, vol. 19, no. 6, Mar. 2016, pp. 629–637., doi:10.1111/ele.12598.]</ref> | ||
[[File:reefresilience.png|200px|thumb|left|alt text<ref>[“Resilience.” The Conservation of Change, www.conservationofchange.org/resilience.]</ref>] | |||
Utilising protected areas to enhance the resilience of reefs is especially important in the face of climate change, as the intangible threats introduced by the global phenomenon cannot be easily barred from valuable reef areas like human activities. For example, a zoned off area is still susceptible to changes in both air and water temperature, as well as amount of carbon in the air.<ref name="salm"/> Moreover, it takes time for ecosystems to build resilience after being designated as a protected area, which can be as long as 20 years.<ref name="mellin"/> To effectively wield resilience from protected areas against climate change, swift action is needed. | |||
=== Effectiveness of protected areas === | |||
==== Original human impact and recovery debt ==== | |||
The effectiveness of a protected area is highly dependent on the extent of original human impact on the reef. Different levels of original impact will affect how much or what aspects of the ecosystem can be recovered. Along the same vein, the level of original human impact will affect how long it takes for the reef to build resilience by recovering back to a healthy state.<ref name="cinner">[Cinner, Joshua E et al. “Gravity of human impacts mediates coral reef conservation gains.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America vol. 115,27 (2018): E6116-E6125. doi:10.1073/pnas.1708001115]</ref> | |||
On the other hand, recovery debt prevents ecosystems from fully recovering to their original state, when considering the added dimension of time. There will always be some resource and value lost when a reef is disturbed, even if it is allowed time to recover afterwards, as it is unlikely to reach full recovery of all of its original functions. Even if a "full recovery" has occurred, some value is lost through the time it takes to recover.<ref name="moreno">[Moreno-Mateos, David, et al. “Anthropogenic Ecosystem Disturbance and the Recovery Debt.” Nature Communications, vol. 8, no. 1, 2017, doi:10.1038/ncomms14163.]</ref> | |||
[[File:Recoverydebt.png|200px|thumb|left|Graph showing the recovery debt of an ecosystem<ref name="moreno"/>]] | |||
Revision as of 16:12, 1 April 2020
Conservation and Reef Resilience
Coral reef conservation is a major part of reef management. Other than being one of the major goals of reef management, adequate conservation efforts are becoming increasingly important as coral reefs are met with more and worse threats. There are many different methods of conservation. The conventional understanding of the concept is setting up conservation zones or protected areas, which is to zone off certain valuable areas so as to protect them from, for example, overfishing. Examples of conservation zones are Marine Protected Areas and Marine Reserves.
How do protected areas conserve reefs?
Directly, protected areas conserve coral reefs by barring off unwanted disturbances. With legislation and enforcement, setting up effective conservation zones can help protect reefs from threats such as littering, certain types of pollution, and other human activities.
However, arguably more importantly, protected areas conserve reefs indirectly by enhancing reef resilience. Resilience is the ability of an ecosystem to bounce back from a disturbance without drastically changing.[1] In the long term, protected areas enhance reef resilience by preserving ecosystem complexity and maintaining the populations of important functional groups, such as herbivorous fish, [2][3][4] which protects reefs from bleaching.[5]
[[File:reefresilience.png|200px|thumb|left|alt text[6]]
Utilising protected areas to enhance the resilience of reefs is especially important in the face of climate change, as the intangible threats introduced by the global phenomenon cannot be easily barred from valuable reef areas like human activities. For example, a zoned off area is still susceptible to changes in both air and water temperature, as well as amount of carbon in the air.[2] Moreover, it takes time for ecosystems to build resilience after being designated as a protected area, which can be as long as 20 years.[5] To effectively wield resilience from protected areas against climate change, swift action is needed.
Effectiveness of protected areas
Original human impact and recovery debt
The effectiveness of a protected area is highly dependent on the extent of original human impact on the reef. Different levels of original impact will affect how much or what aspects of the ecosystem can be recovered. Along the same vein, the level of original human impact will affect how long it takes for the reef to build resilience by recovering back to a healthy state.[7]
On the other hand, recovery debt prevents ecosystems from fully recovering to their original state, when considering the added dimension of time. There will always be some resource and value lost when a reef is disturbed, even if it is allowed time to recover afterwards, as it is unlikely to reach full recovery of all of its original functions. Even if a "full recovery" has occurred, some value is lost through the time it takes to recover.[8]
- ↑ [Holling, C S. “Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, vol. 4, no. 1, 1973, pp. 1–23., doi:10.1146/annurev.es.04.110173.000245.]
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 [Salm, Rodney V., et al. “Marine Protected Area Planning in a Changing Climate.” Coral Reefs and Climate Change: Science and Management Coastal and Estuarine Studies, 2006, pp. 207–221., doi:10.1029/61ce12.]
- ↑ [Bellwood, D. R., et al. “Confronting the Coral Reef Crisis.” Nature, vol. 429, no. 6994, 2004, pp. 827–833., doi:10.1038/nature02691.]
- ↑ [Cumming, Graeme S., et al. “New and Emerging Directions in Coral Reef Conservation.” Biological Conservation, vol. 241, 2020, p. 108372., doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108372.]
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 [Mellin, Camille, et al. “Marine Protected Areas Increase Resilience among Coral Reef Communities.” Ecology Letters, vol. 19, no. 6, Mar. 2016, pp. 629–637., doi:10.1111/ele.12598.]
- ↑ [“Resilience.” The Conservation of Change, www.conservationofchange.org/resilience.]
- ↑ [Cinner, Joshua E et al. “Gravity of human impacts mediates coral reef conservation gains.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America vol. 115,27 (2018): E6116-E6125. doi:10.1073/pnas.1708001115]
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 [Moreno-Mateos, David, et al. “Anthropogenic Ecosystem Disturbance and the Recovery Debt.” Nature Communications, vol. 8, no. 1, 2017, doi:10.1038/ncomms14163.]