How the Belize Barrier Reef Fails the List of Threatened Species | Smart news

This week, UNESCO, the United Nations Scientific and Cultural Agency, removed Belize's coral reef reserve system from the list of World Heritage sites at risk. MesoAmerican Reef network, 600 miles long. And, surprisingly, it's not because the reef is so degraded or damaged that it can not be saved. The BBC reports that on the contrary, after a decade of "visionary" work to protect the reef, Unesco thinks that it is safe for the moment.

According to a press release, the reef about 200 miles long was inscribed as a Heritage Site in 1996, but in 2009, due to a series of threats, it was added to the list of endangered species of the Agency. In particular, the possibility of offshore oil drilling near the reef, the rapid destruction of mangrove forests and coastal development all threaten to degrade the reef system which, in addition to being part of the largest reef in the northern hemisphere, is also threatened. species, including sea turtles, manatees and crocodiles.

Tryggvi Adalbjornsson in The New York Times reports that the reef has been removed from the list because, for the moment, all these threats have decreased. "In the last two years, especially last year, the Belize government has made a truly transformational change," says Fanny Douvere, coordinator of the marine program of the United Nations.

Tik Root at National Geographic This public concern for the reef blossomed in 2011 with the revelation that the government has quietly sold oil concessions for the entire seabed. The activists retreated, and in 2012, they got enough signatures for a petition to force a national referendum on oil drilling. But when the government refused to publish the referendum, claiming that thousands of signatures were illegible, the activists organized their own "popular referendum".

AFP reports that 96% of voters chose to protect the reef The following year, the Belize Supreme Court ruled that oil contracts were illegal because they did not respect the rules. required environmental impact procedures, after which the political trend is reversed. Last December, the government announced a ban on offshore drilling in all its waters, and this summer a strict regulation on mangrove cutting has come into effect. Unesco praised the efforts made as "a visionary plan for managing the coastline" and "the level of conservation we hoped for was achieved."

Belize also made other changes, including new environmental taxes to support the reef, a restricted fishery of sensitive species such as parrot fish and efforts to limit foreign trawlers. It has also increased its prohibited fishing areas from 3 percent of its waters to 10 percent. Next year, the government announced its intention to ban all single-use plastics, which also polluted the reef.

While all this is great news for Belize, Root points out that the reef is still facing the challenge of growing tourism. And Adalbjornsson points out that, like all the reefs of the world, the ecosystem is facing major challenges of climate change, including an increase in water temperature and bleaching phenomena. , ocean pollution and acidification. "The main threats are still there," said John Bruno, a marine ecologist from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "The most important, of course, is the warming of the ocean."

Root reports that bleaching along the reef has become an annual event, with 40 percent of the study sites affected last year alone. In fact, recent research shows that all reef systems should expect major bleaching episodes at least once a decade and that ocean temperatures continue to rise as a result of climate change. could even become more frequent. The Great Barrier Reef, off Australia, has already been irreparably changed by climate change, with the death of half of its corals by consecutive bleaching episodes between 2015 and 2017.

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