Cuba rescues damaged coral reef

Cuba rescues damaged coral reef

A team from the Cuba National Aquarium is on a mission to repair vital coral reef from decades of damage caused by overfishing, pollution and the effects of climate change.

Cuba’s coral reef rescue Cuba's first coral nursery helps to repopulate damaged reefs //from pollution, overfishing, and climate change // (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) HEAD OF BIODIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF THE CUBA NATIONAL AQUARIUM, PEDRO PABLO CHEVALIER, SAYING: “This project that we are carrying out aims to help the reef recover its ecological functions, its ecosystem functions, and increase the biodiversity of corals.

// We are trying to make an assisted selection, an assisted evolution of these corals towards corals that are more resistant to high temperatures, ocean acidification, and contamination of Caribbean sea waters." Corals are animals on the ocean floor about 25% of marine life depend on them at some point in their lifetime Over half the coral in the Caribbean have died since the 1970s (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) HEAD OF BIODIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF THE CUBA NATIONAL AQUARIUM, PEDRO PABLO CHEVALIER, SAYING: "Climate change affects the ecosystem, itaffects all life on the planet.

In the specific case of coral reefs, the rise in water temperature, in the seas, especially in the tropics, directly affects corals.

These above-normal temperature changes cause what is known as coral bleaching, which is nothing more than heat stress loss from symbiotic algae that live alongside corals."