Vietnam's Coral Reefs Going Fast; Bleaching, Sediment, Overfishing And Acidification Working Simultaneously
NHA TRANG, Vietnam (AP) — The gentle waves off the coast of central Vietnam’s Nha Trang obscure an open secret: The life-giving coral reefs below are dying. The waters are eerily devoid of fish. The bounty of the ocean is coming to an end. This is why Binh Van — who fished in these waters for over two decades — now charters his boat to Vietnamese tourists wanting to experience the thrill of fishing in the deep waters of the South China Sea. But there is only squid, which is flourishing in oceans warmed by climate change, to catch. His passengers don’t mind as the boat moves away from Nha Trang’s twinkling beach resorts. But Van is pensive. It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when he’d catch 70 kilograms (154 pounds) of fish, like tuna and grouper, in one night. He can’t make money on the squid. “Now I usually go home empty-handed,” he said.
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The coral reefs of Nha Trang have also had to contend with local pressures as Vietnam’s economy boomed and coastal towns grew. Sediment from construction harms corals. Runoff from agriculture, sewage and booming aquaculture trigger algal blooms that block sunlight and choke corals. Intense overfishing killed off fishes that support reef health. By 2019, an outbreak of a predatory, thorny starfish — made likelier because of the reef’s disturbed ecological balance — had killed nearly 90% by eating corals of the surviving reefs by 2019, said Konstantin S. Tkachenko, a professor of marine ecology at Russia’s Samara University who has been studying Vietnam’s reefs for years.
This has affected not only the local fishing industry — reefs provide food, shelter, and breeding grounds for fish — but also Vietnam’s tourism industry, especially among divers from all over the world who flock to the Southeast Asian country because of its long coastline. The underwater landscape is becoming infamous for different types of waste: Glass bottles where revelers party, nylon fishing lines where fishing boats lurk and plastic everywhere. Fish that clean reefs and keep them healthy by eating algae or parasites, like the distinctive Picasso triggerfish and the beaked Indian parrotfish, have disappeared, said Michael Blum of Rainbow Divers, a diving company in Vietnam.
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Vietnam insists that it is making efforts to make tourism sustainable. In 2001, it established 160 square kilometers (61 square miles) of land and water as its first protected marine area. But problems have persisted, from destructive practices that used explosives or poison to excessive tourism and coastal construction, said Vietnamese state media. In 2022, local authorities paused tourism to give the reef time to recover while removing predatory starfish and cleaning the seabed. The government has also approved a coral nursery project to support the recovery of the ecosystem. But even though a marine patrol was established to protect the waters to ensure that fishermen don’t enter the marine park, Blum said fishing in the protected area was continuing. “We go out in the morning, we are chasing the fishing boats away. We leave in the afternoon, and the fishing boats are coming back in,” Blum said.
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https://apnews.com/article/vietnam-coral-reefs-climate-change-conservation-tourism-e53c333df1d4c0488719b9619a4056e0