Yerevan, October 23 (askanews) – The results of a global assessment of coral reef ecosystems, initiated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), are "alarming." COP17 in Yerevan has sounded another alarm bell related to climate change, in this case regarding the biodiversity represented by reefs and their corals. "We are at risk of losing coral reef ecosystems," said Susanne Pedersen, director of the IUCN Centre of Science and Knowledge.
This will not only affect biodiversity, but will have devastating impacts across various sectors, particularly affecting people who depend on coral reef ecosystems for their livelihoods and food security. Despite the substantial inattention of the major international media, the Armenian COP is sending out a series of extremely worrying messages about the state of our planet and its balances, consolidated over millions of years of evolution and dramatically endangered in the Anthropocene. "We have examined the risk of collapse of 127 shallow-water coral reef ecosystems," added Mishal Gudka, scientific lead for the assessment for the IUCN, "thus covering almost all coral reefs worldwide.
It has emerged that 96% of these ecosystems are critically endangered, meaning they are at extremely high risk of collapse in the next 50 years.” And while medium- to long-term perspectives are historically a way to procrastinate interventions, in the case of coral reefs, the disappearance is already underway: a reef in the western sector of the Galapagos has been destroyed and in its place there is now only debris and algae.
A post-disaster scenario that affects everyone and is happening now.
Askanews