CSUN Today

Peter Edmunds, from California State University Northridge, visited coral reefs near St. John after they were hit by back-to-back category 5 hurricanes. He anticipated that the reefs would be completely destroyed, but found that there were minor impacts. This is because the coral reefs had become so used to harmful environmental changes that they were resistant to the impacts of the hurricanes. This may sound positive; however, it is not necessarily good news since these reefs didn’t have major changes because they are already extremely degraded. These reefs are in such bad condition that they consist mainly of seaweed and a small amount of corals.

 

I think this discovery shows the importance of monitoring ecosystems and the impacts of environmental damage. Edmunds knew the minor changes wasn’t good news because he had been researching these reefs for 31 years and saw how unhealthy they were. If he just discovered these reefs and saw there was little damage, he may have thought environmental impacts on coral reefs aren’t severe. I think it is important to have funding for environmental research and to monitor impacts of major events such as hurricanes.

8 thoughts on “CSUN Today

  1. I totally agree! How do you think we can raise funding for environmental research? Do you think there is anything we aren’t doing right now that could boost support? How do we make sure these projects are widely supported?

    • I think education is really important, and people would be more likely to support protecting coral reefs if they knew how important coral reefs are.

  2. I think this story highlights the special consideration that needs to be had when in discussion of the environment because any change can have major impacts even if the change appears to be good. Is there any possibility of the reefs in question recovering?

    • Researchers are finding a lot of new ways to help protect coral reefs that I’ve written about for my other posts, so I think if these discoveries are implemented there could be hope for coral reefs.

  3. I think that the discovery of these reefs is important for the future, specifically for the safety of the environments as you said. Do you think situations like this happen often and some habitats are not treated with the same amount of care?

    • I think people around the world could be doing much more to protect important habitats, so I’m sure situations like this happen often with other habitats.

  4. It’s nice to see that people are spreading awareness on how irreversible damage to the environment can be, and I agree with your idea that there should be more funding to these type of environmental causes.

  5. I completely agree I feel that we must focus on projecting our money towards research in order to control and observe impacts caused by climate. This will allow more people to become more aware of the severity of environmental damage.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *