Salm, lean and tall, his skin burnished bronze from years of work in the tropics, has studied reefs for two decades. In a sense, they act like a very efficient production system. Instead of producing a waste product at the end of the pipe, the wastes are reused, recycled back into the coral's production process. Nothing else in the sea rivals their biodiversity. The reefs surrounding the South Pacific island of Palau, for instance, nurture nine species of seagrass, more than 300 species of coral and 2,000 varieties of fish.
Reefs provide habitat for over one million species of plants and animals.
Warnings of destruction Not surprisingly, reefs are the main source of animal protein for over one billion poor people in Asia, a fact that is too often ignored by the region's governments as they struggle to develop their economies, often at the expense of common resources. Not only are reefs pillaged and destroyed by fishermen using dynamite and poisons. They are damaged by fine mesh nets and boat anchors dropped carelessly on coral heads. They are excavated for use in cement production and used as road fill. They are killed off by pollutants pumped into coastal waters by irresponsible industries, smothered by eroded sediment torn off the land, and choked by untreated sewage and municipal wastes flushed into coastal waters by urban areas and tourist resorts.