reprinted from In Grove Miami Magazine 1990
This early article offers a good perspective on Reef Relief’s efforts to protect coral reefs.
by Dana Robbin
North America’s only living coral reef appears to be thriving. Six miles offshore and some 158 miles in length, this underwater Eden swings like a charm on a bracelet from a band of tiny islands called the Florida Keys, out past the Dry Tortugas.
Iridescent and vital, it pulses with life, with jellyfish, sponges, anemones, and snails…turtles, crabs, spiny lobsters and rays…purple sea fans, and soft stony corals.
The tiny reef-building coral “polyp” is no bigger than a pinhead. Encased in a calcareous (containing calcium) exoskeleton, it is fragile and delicate; a simple little creature with a life span of centuries that, together with millions of other little microscopic animals, creates living coral formations in shapes of leaves, fans, brains, and tendrils of plants. Adding new coral to old, and passing nutrients through, they build ever so slowly; some less than an inch per year.
The coral reef of the Keys is one of the world’s richest ecosystems. It is home to 150 species of tropical fish, and 50 species of coral. Surrounded by dense mangrove forests and flowering seagrass beds, it provides a nursery and breeding habitat for one third of Florida’s endangered species, including the manatee, Key Deer and crocodile. Yet this coral barrier is itself in peril.
Once insulated from the Miami mainland and the stresses of urban living by a thin, treacherous roadway and 32 bridges, the Keys’ corals have become the world’s busiest dive destination. Busier even than Australia’s Great Barrier Reef that at 1,240 miles in length, is the world’s largest ecosystem and the only living structure visible to the naked human eye from outer space. In fact, ten times busier, and on the critical list.
The Keys’ corals are dying. Diseases of known and unknown origins are breaking out in epidemic proportions. Algal blooms of unprecedented size are suffocating our dive sites. Once pristine waters stand murky and green. Question is: Is it too late?
Not according to Craig and DeeVon Quirolo, cofounders of a non-profit grass roots organization established in 1986 to “preserve and protect” the living coral reef. If we didn’t think it could be done, we wouldn’t be trying,” says DeeVon, ex-law student turned natural-food restaurateur turned publisher and full-time environmentalist.
She and her husband Craig met in the early 1970’s. At that time, he was running some of the first snorkeling charters off Key West in aquarium-glass waters that magnified schools of tropical fish resplendent over star and brain corals. Also at that time, the reef that had, throughout history, defined the island’s character and secured its economic prosperity by snagging the treasure-chested hulls of wooden sailing ships for opportunistic pirates and wreck salvors, was becoming the lolita of a burgeoning tourist industry.
Having weathered 450 million years, hurricanes, tornadoes, and two world wars, the coral reefs of the Keys have met their march: human beings. Virgin strands of branching corals like elkhorn and staghorn were toppled by anchors mindlessly tossed. Soft coral “polyps” were crushed by careless divers crawling hand-over-hand over corals that appeared immortal, but were not.
The Quirolos were realists. They understood that, having found this 18-karat gemstone, no one was moving north. So they set out to define a reef-saving etiquette for the 75,000 Keys’ residents, and the millions of tourists. They designed and installed 116 mooring buoys, giving boaters an alternative to dropping anchor on the fragile corals. At the edge of Key West Harbor, they set up an environmental information center. They held information symposiums for the hospitality industry, created a “sea-fan” membership campaign, hosted film festivals on marine conservation, sponsored beach clean-ups, developed school curriculum programs, helped underwrite valuable marine research, and launched an underwater photo monitoring program to keep tabs on changes at the reef.
Their “Do not touch, stand on or take the coral” message was translated into French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. And on Earth Day, 1990, a top honor was presented: Then President Bush singled out the environmental group as his 123rd “Point of Light,” for its success in turning the Keys’ attitude towards their reef from benign neglect to informed stewardship.
Then the water quality washed up as the number one coral-killer. The job got even tougher. “Now,” says DeeVon, “we’re into the hard stuff, the issues that will take lifestyle changes to resolve.”
Like “nutrient” rich waters that feed disease and algae growth from Florida Bay and Miami’s Biscayne Bay. Like impacts from the Everglades, South Florida’s agricultural areas, and West Florida’s phosphate mining. Like Keys’ own land-based pollution; the inadequate and primitive sewage treatment facilities, chemical fertilizers, illegal cesspits, and pesticides.
To save the living coral, so akin to human bone it can be used in transplant surgery, the Quirolos and their team of volunteers and experts have had to take on the Big Leaguers; becoming coalition builders and advocates in addition to educators, tackling governmental bodies and manufacturing associations.
Not without avail: A ten year ban on offshore oil drilling, cancellation of navy explosives testing, Florida’s Keys National Marine Sanctuary legislation, a phosphate ban for Monroe County, and restrictions on the harvesting of marine life, are but the opening credits on a list that’s long, and lengthening.
Still, the Quirolos warn, “Without aggressive water quality regulations, enforcement, and no-use zones for recovery and monitoring, the reef will not be here for future generations.”
Battered, the coral garden is in our hands.