Status of Coral Reefs of the World 2000

Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2000
The largest coral reef areas in South Asia include the atolls of Lakshadweep, Maldives, and
Chagos. Corals also grow along the coast of the Indian subcontinent and around Sri Lanka,
include extensive reefs around the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal, the
Gulf of Mannar and Gulf of Kutch on the mainland of India. Reefs in this region are strongly
influenced by the southwest and northeast monsoons. There are no extensive coral reefs in
Bangladesh except for small coral patches offshore around St. Martin’s Island. In Pakistan,
there are only small isolated coral colonies in highly turbid coastal conditions.
The South Asia region is characterised by large populations of very poor coastal people
who depend on coral reef resources, particularly in India, and Sri Lanka. Coral reefs are
important economic resources for India, Maldives, and Sri Lanka, but the perceived values
varies amongst different sectors. In the Maldives, coral reefs are important primarily for
tourism, followed by fisheries, coastal protection and the aquarium trade. In India, reefs are
important mostly for fisheries and coastal protection, with strong potential for tourism
developments in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and possibly on the Lakshadweep
atolls in the future. The primary economic activity of reefs in Sri Lanka is fisheries, followed
by coastal protection, ornamental fisheries, and tourism.
The coral reefs of India and Sri Lanka are being degraded rapidly by increasing human
activities, particularly over-fishing, coral mining and the effects of sediment and nutrient
pollution. In contrast, the remote reefs of the Maldives and Lakshadweep have been
virtually unaffected. That was the case until the major climate related bleaching events
during the first half of 1998, which destroyed many of the shallow water corals in the
remote reefs of the Maldives and Chagos, as well as the Lakshadweep atoll reefs, and reefs
around Sri Lanka and in the Gulf of Mannar of India. There are also reports of bleaching
damage to coral reefs in the Gulf of Kutch and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, but these
impacts were less severe than elsewhere. The greatest impact of bleaching was in shallow
reef areas to about 10m depth. Branching and tabulate corals that dominated these reefs
were the most affected, and appear to have been almost obliterated in many areas. Since
the bleaching event, monitoring has been initiated in several reef areas to observe signs of
recovery and new recruitment, as well as gathering sound baseline data to better
understand reefs under highly stressful conditions.
The following provides an overview of each country in this node:
Bangladesh
The offshore island of St. Martin’s is the only area with corals in Bangladesh and is heavily
influenced by monsoons and frequent cyclones. There are no true coral reefs around this
island, only coral aggregations in shallow waters along with seagrass beds, soft coral
habitats and rocky habitats. There is heavy sedimentation from the combined discharge of
the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers, which contribute about 6% of the world’s
total sediment input into the oceans.
Chagos
The Chagos Archipelago is the southern most group of atolls in the Laccadive-Chagos ridge
and is located at the geographical centre of the Indian Ocean. Chagos is a British Territory and
uninhabited except for the US military base on Diego Garcia. There are 6 major atolls, many
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