Have you ever considered corals a worthy living that need as urgent conservation as other creatures in the environment? When you travel to the sea and take scuba diving, do you ever notice any blemishes on those motionless marine animals? Yes, you are not mishearing, in fact, they are counted as invertebrates by marine biologists and probably are one of the most vulnerable livings in the oceans. Owing to this reason, corals should be more acknowledged by more people that they are being endangered as well. 

Just by imagining a marine ecosystem without coral reefs, that would definitely be the worst habitat for all other marine creatures because corals are home to more than a million sea animals. Without their home, survival and reproduction will be beyond difficult and in the long run, the effect can possibly lead to a huge extinction of those which are homeless. The common sign that indicates the worsening state of corals is a bleached color of themselves. We normally call it ‘coral bleaching’ and the term has actually been around for quite some time, often seen in news and campaigns which aim to prevent corals from getting destroyed. Amki (2019) points out that this hazardous phenomenon is basically a condition where corals lose the specific seaweed called Zooxanthellae. It is said that corals are highly sensitive to stimulators and weather conditions; for instance, if the temperature goes up to just 1 to 2 degrees for consecutive 3 weeks, they are likely to get stressed out. Then, the seaweed that lives on the surface and acts as food and colorful ornaments for the corals will desert its original home and find a new one in account for its own survival. Accordingly, this is the main reason as to why our coral reefs around the world are dying.

Now that this is relevant to climate change and global warming, it is going to take time and consistency to recover and fertilize them back to normal. Nonetheless, there are many environmental campaigns and projects to provide the affected areas with artificial coral reefs that usually are made of rocks, cinder blocks, and even wood and old tires (NOAA, 2020). Even though they are long-lasting and can effectively help with the coral recovery, it is only an alternative solution to the whole problem. In the long term, we all still must stand firm at finding secondary power resources that take up less energy and emit as less toxic substances as possible. 

Green A. (2019). ปรากฏการณ์ปะการังฟอกขาว (Coral Bleaching) คืออะไร. Retrieved June 10, 2020, from https://www.trueplookpanya.com/knowledge/content/67857/-blo-scibio-sci-

NOAA. (2020). What is an artificial reef?. Retrieved June 10, 2020, from https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/artificial-reef.html