Status of Coral Reefs of the World 2000

INTRODUCTION
We are pleased to support the Second Edition of the Status of Coral Reefs of the World,
particularly as the target audiences are decision makers, major donors and national and
international agencies who are requested to take urgent action to conserve these valuable
resources. It is also targeted at the informed public, who continually put pressure on
decision makers to act and devote resources for reef conservation and management. The
report was written to provide an overview, without the use of scientific jargon, of the status
of coral reefs and causes of reef decline, with recommendations for action by national
authorities. The chapters are expanded executive summaries of the National and Regional
reports that form the feedstock for this report. We refer the reader to these sources listed
after each chapter for the data that support the statements made in this summary report.
This second edition of the Status of Coral Reefs of the World is a major expansion and
improvement on the first edition written in 1998. The improvements reflect encouraging
development and maturation of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) with
National Status of Coral Reef Reports submitted by 97 authors from 86 countries or states.
Many of these reports constitute baseline information for large areas of the world’s coral
reefs, and are often the first summaries written by countries on the status of their reefs.
When this process is repeated in 2002, these countries will be asked to look at the 2000
report and assess the progress of efforts to manage reef resources. Similar success was
evident when many Pacific countries presented their first Status of Reefs Reports at the
International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) regional Pacific meeting in Noumea in May, 2000.
The 1998 report was released at the ICRI International Tropical Marine Ecosystems
Management Symposium (ITMEMS) in Townsville in November, 1998. Material for that
report arose out of papers presented at the 8 th International Coral Reef Symposium in
Panama City in June 1996 when leading coral reef scientists and managers were invited to
present summaries at a reef status symposium organised by Clive Wilkinson and Bernard
Salvat. Those summaries were updated for the GCRMN status report of 1998, which was the
first review of the status of coral reefs status the ground breaking 3 volume series edited by
Susan Wells for UNEP and the IUCN in 1988 (references at the back).
An examination of the 1998 and this report shows that the regions and groupings of
countries have changed, which reflects the development of Nodes of the GCRMN. These
Nodes are groupings of countries around the world which cooperate to monitor their reefs,
usually with the assistance of one country with the capacity to assist in training, monitoring
and data analysis. The first Node, formed in South Asia for India, Maldives and Sri Lanka, has
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