These are critical issues and we are on the road to protecting our valuable coral reefs. In the next six months, working groups will build on their proposals and present the Task Force with final strategies that will include budget estimates and performance plans to track progress and measure success. The Task Force meets again in October 1999 for review and possible adoption of the working group strategies as a Task Force Action Plan. The Coral Reef Task Force consists of senior leaders of 11 federal agencies and representatives of seven states and territories, and is co-chaired by the Secretary of Interior and the Secretary of Commerce. The task force was created to help implement research, monitoring, mapping, conservation, restoration and international measures to reduce human impacts on coral reefs.
Recent studies raise renewed alarm about the threats to reefs.
Among the key findings of the World Resources Institute's Reefs at Risk report is that 58 percent of the world's reefs are potentially threatened by human activities. The major threats are from coastal development, destructive fishing practices, overexploitation of marine resources, marine pollution and sedimentation from inland deforestation and farming.