Global warming is the major environmental threat which has hardly left any aspect of the nature untouched. The latest to be engulfed by this threat is the coral reefs of Indonesia. Indonesia is known to have 8 percent of the world’s coral reefs.
The reefs are already under threat from destructive fishing practices, pollution and coastal development. Now they are being further damaged by unusually warm ocean temperatures which is the result of global warming. The heat affects the tiny algae which live symbiotically inside the corals and supply them with food. The heat stress damages the algae and in consequence leads to coral death.
According to environmentalists if quick measures are not taken to stop the destruction, many reefs across the sprawling archipelago of about 17,000 islands in Indonesia could disappear in the next few decades. Scientists estimate over 27 percent of the world’s coral has been permanently lost. They estimate that another 30 percent will disappear over the next 3 decades.
Indonesia will host the 13th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which serves as the Third Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Bali, December 4-13, 2007. 190 countries will gather to try to strike out a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, a global pact aimed at fighting global warming.
Source: Reuters