Bright, pretty, swaying in the ocean... that’s what we think corals are. Alarming but true — soon, we may remember them as fossils, warns Benita Sen

Individually, they’re tiny. Together, they’re a study in the power of unity. Corals, which we decorate our homes with and wear so proudly around the throat, have been in our oceans for over 40 million years.

But did you know, they soon might become museum pieces? Twenty per cent of the world’s breathtaking coral reefs have disappeared in the last 20 years, and almost the entire coral population is in danger of a similar fate!

They may look pretty innocuous, but we certainly need corals around if we want to be around. Apart from their beauty and their joy to snorkellers, corals help sustain life on Earth in ways which we are still learning.

Home Base
Their uneven topography makes corals home to a quarter of all marine plants and animals from fish and crabs to worms, and grasses that grow on them. They’re the forest that provides food and shelter under water.

A wall of coral is also an ideal incubator and nursery for the young of the ocean. Depletion in the coral population would adversely affect the marine beings and in turn, leave humans crying for the seafood that provides protein and livelihood to millions of people.

Stopping The Tides
And that’s not all. Just imagine an ocean bed that lies plain. The waves and currents would find no impediments to sweeping through. Thanks to corals, the ocean floor has natural walls that may have taken a thousand years to develop, but which filter water and stand guard against the onslaught of tides and fiery storms.

Apart from cleaning the ocean, corals create limestone from minerals in the water and produce the vast quantities of sand that keep our beaches fresh. The significance of a coral reef is best understood if you liken it to the forests above the water.

Protective and sustaining, they nurture biodiversity and encourage a vast number of marine creatures and plants to live in harmony and health. Science has just begun learning a few lessons from corals, and there are many more to come. For instance, scientists in Queensland have studied the protective shield of a coral and developed a similar sunscreen that filters harmful UV rays.

Marine Survival
But will we still have corals to learn from? These frail creatures of the ocean are fighting a losing battle on several fronts. Chemicals and pollutants are perhaps their most serious enemy. Vast quantities of sewage flood the seas, breeding an alarming amount of algae that clog the surface and do not allow sunlight through.

With so many more mouths to feed, fisheries have been over-exploited the world over, and now, people are scouring coral reefs for different forms of food. Fishing in the ocean, in fact, can be quite indiscriminate, specially since it is too large a body to monitor minutely. Trawling, when it scrapes the bottom of the ocean, can be lethal for coral reefs.

Fishermen even use dynamite to blow up fish and reefs get blown to smithereens with the impact. Other desperate ways to fill the fish baskets include stunning the fish with a sprinkle of cyanide. The deadly chemical leaches into the water and poisons all life around. The sensitive corals are badly affected.

Muddy Waters
If our rivers are silted over, can the ocean bed be far behind? With growing deforestation, vast quantities of silt are washed into the ocean, including into the coral, and finally chokes them. Sadly, all the above ills plague the coral reefs in the Indian Ocean, too, just at our shores.

A booming hospitality industry may be good news for the world economy, but the corals are crying foul. If only they could be heard, they would have told us how they fear invasive, thoughtless tourists who must, simply must, carry some coral back home for a souvenir. Moreover, having more tourists in the coastal areas implies more pollution that washes into the ocean. Coral is extracted for commercial purposes, too, for limestone and sand, and for building materials.

Home Shores
As far back as in 1984, the United Nations Environment Programme estimated that 20 per cent of the Indian Ocean’s coral reefs have been destroyed. India, one of the largest countries in this region, has set aside reef areas for protection, but destruction goes on, nonetheless.

The good news is, each of us can help prevent further denuding coral reefs. As tourists, we need to remember that if we do go coral-sighting, we must not touch corals or any other marine life. Be careful not to litter the ocean. It is grappling with enough of our garbage without you adding to its burden. Forget souvenirs. Memories are the best thing to carry back home.