Protecting our Coral Reefs

        The Red Sea hosts some of the worlds most beautiful and vibrant coral reefs in the world, containing over 300 different species of corals and 1,000 species of fish, 10% of which can only be found here in the Red Sea. As oceans get warmer, due to global warming, stressed corals start evicting their energy-producing algae and lose their color. This causes corals to bleach and die, resulting in entire ecosystems to collapse with them.

 

Because most corals can only survive within a narrow temperature range the effect of global heating, pollution and habitat destruction, caused global coral reef coverage to have halved since the 1950s. Its predicted that up to 90% of corals could perish in the coming decades. 

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Fortunately these vibrant coral gardens at the northern shores of the Red Sea at the Gulf of Aqaba seem to be unaffected by steadily warming waters.  It was found that the corals in the northern Gulf of Aqaba could withstand temperatures up to six degrees celsius higher than the maximum summer temperature they're usually exposed to. 

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This gives us great hope that these super corals can be the perfect source to help repopulate other reefs around the world and offer the marine life around them another chance to flourish. With this hope in mind comes great responsibility to protect these resilient corals from any threats and damage.

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