§ Mr. HoyleTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development if she will make a statement on the depletion of coral reefs; and what initiatives the Government are taking to prevent the destruction of coral reefs. [47811]
§ Mr. FoulkesThis Department recognises that depletion of coral reefs is a significant cause of poverty in developing countries, where poor coastal communities often lack land and employment and the coastal ecosystems offer the only accessible source of nutrition and income.
Degradation of coral reefs is occurring in many regions of the tropical oceans as the recently published World Resources Institute/World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WRI/WCMC) report "Reefs at Risk" makes clear. Traditional management systems in many small island communities have permitted sustainable use of reef resources for many years, but increasing population pressure and inappropriate development have contributed to the breakdown of these community-based management systems and a decline in the resource base. Modern arrangements for protection of coral reefs often aim to combine conservation with tourism and, unless carefully planned, can impose costs on the poor through loss of livelihoods. This Department is examining ways in which resources provided by coral reef biodiversity can be sustainably used to support people's livelihoods.
The United Kingdom is a founder member of the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) and this Department has recently published a Manual of Coastal Resource Management in South Asia, following up earlier financial and technical support for the ICRI South Asia Region Coral Reef Management Workshop. We are also helping our partners in South Asia to protect their coral reefs by providing funds and expertise to the International Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO for the development of a South Asia region coral reef monitoring network, the first regional component of a planned global network.
The Government support the development of new approaches to the conservation and sustainable use of coral reef resources through research projects in the Caribbean investigating the biological and social impacts of coral reef protection, and the rate at which degraded reefs can recover when protected. We have funded research to develop a new technology for accelerating the recovery of degraded reefs through research in The Maldives, where coral rock is mined for use as building material. Reefs which had been bare of living coral organisms for 20 years became recolonised within a period of 12 months. We have recently supported work to improve the accuracy of remote sensing methods used in monitoring the state of the coral reef environment.
Our concern for the protection of coral reefs, and other tropical coastal ecosystems, is to help our partners stabilise and regenerate natural resources which are of significant importance to global efforts to eradicate poverty.