Coral highlights complexity of climate change

From an article by Lucy-Claire Saunders on China View:

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Eli Fuller traverses the waters of Antigua's south shore like it was his backyard pool. He cuts left and right on his 45-foot speedboat the Xtreme, confidently dodging crosscurrents and coral reefs, saltwater spraying behind his silhouette.

The third generation Antiguan has been exploring this area for over two decades. Fuller's grandfather, who came to Antigua in 1941 as a United States vice-consul and opened the country's first hotel, making Fuller take his guests on day tours.

Now Fuller runs an eco-tour business and charges per person.

As he pulls back on Xtreme's throttle, the boat glides to a standstill over Cades Reef, a two-mile long wall of coral. But most of the reef is now a white skeleton of its former glory.

"It happened so quickly that you went from having what looked like an underwater jungle, like something you'd see in the Amazon forest, to being complete wreckage, like what you'd see at Ground Zero in New York," he said. "Just carnage."

In 2005, as much as 90 percent of the coral reefs in the Eastern Caribbean were destroyed bringing the worst year of coral bleaching and disease in Caribbean history. The reason could be a mixture of factors like warming waters and pollution, but more scientists are looking at Africa. But that shall be explained later. . . .

John Maginley, the minister of tourism, is in charge of the primary source of income for Antigua and Barbuda. He told Xinhua that tourism generates around 200 to 300 million U.S. dollars a year, roughly 65 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP).

With fewer reefs to protect Antigua's valuable beaches from powerful storms, Maginley worries about his country's main source of income.

"Our motto in tourism is, 'The beach is just the beginning,'" he said. "And if we have a situation where beaches are being eroded, and the shoreline will be affected, things we have to offer to our tourism visitors are affected."

On Antigua's southwest coast on Crabb Hill beach, for example, OJ's Beach Bar has been dubbed by locals as OJ's Rock Bar because they had to put rocks along the shoreline just to stop the bar from falling into the sea.