CoralMining

Coral Mining

Purpose of Mining

• Construction
  • Limestone
    • Coral can be made into limestone or a cement substitute for use as a building material
  • Building Material for Roads, Houses, Seawalls/Groins/Jetties
    • Coral is the main construction material in many islands, such as the Maldives, where there is no cheaper option
• Calcium
  • Dead coral is made into calcium supplements
• Jewelry/Souvenirs
  • Coral jewelry and dried coral are often sold to tourists and exporters
• Marine Aquaria
  • Live coral is collected and used by the marine aquarium industry
• Medical Use
  • Coral is used for bone graph clinical trials
• Mining for Lime
  • Especially in Australia because farmland was very acidic, lime was added to fertilizer to decrease acidity and thus increase yields. Most of the lime came from burnt coral from the Great Barrier Reef. This was a very cheap source of lime because only a permit was required to harvest the coral in a specific area (Daley & Griggs)

Methods for Mining

• Dynamite Blasting
  • Affects a large area of the coral reef
• Manual Removal
  • Collectors use small boats, free-dive, or wade into the coral reefs to collect the corals
  • Large corals are broken up into small, manageable pieces using iron bars

Location of Mining

• coral mining can really take place anywhere there is coral available in a convenient location (off cays in shallow water, usually at low tide)
• prominent locations include: the Great Barrier Reef, the Maldives, Panama, Indonesia, East Africa, the the general area of the South Pacific

(Caras & Pasternak, Daley & Griggs, Shepherd et. al., Guzman et. al., and Clark & Edwards)

Impacts of Mining

• loss in biodiversity due to:
  • loss of substrate
  • increased sedimentation
  • more algae
  • land retreat
  • increased vulnerability to waves and natural disasters
  • decrease in recruitment (mainly because there is not enough substrate available)
• some reefs that have been mined and left untouched for 20 years have still not recovered because the biodiversity of the reef depends on corals and because corals do not have sufficient substrates to attach themselves to, coral cannot survive
• Surprisingly, the harvesting of live corals, etc. for the aquarium industry do not have much of an impact of the reef. This is because only pieces of coral are taken and much of it is left intact. Also, because corals can regenerate from broken off fragments, it is generally observed that harvesting can be sustainable when the right methods are used
• Many of the natives in Indonesia and miners almost a century ago did not regard coral as a living being. To them, it was merely rock and it would do no harm to remove it because it had significant economic value
• economic loss of mining to local communities
  • less tourism/ecotourism money coming into the community
  • the destruction/mismanagement of 1sq. km. of reef results in a loss of up to $6.6 million
  • for every $10 is profit made from mining, the community loses $254 (from the fishery and tourism industries)
• economic value of mining to local communities
  • the value of material taken from reefs is estimated at about $375 billion per year

(Caras & Pasternak, Daley & Griggs)

Sources http://www.coral.org/resources/issue_briefs/mining_and_harvesting http://www.dulvy.com/publications/pre_2000/Dulvy_etal_1995_AMBIO.pdf http://www.fao.org/docrep/X5623E/x5623e0o.htm Caras & Pasternak, Daley & Griggs, Shepherd et. al., Guzman et. al., and Clark & Edwards