Barbados’ coral reefs are in serious trouble, even as officials try to restore their health and protect them from a deadly heat wave that has decimated them worldwide.
Director of the Coastal Zone Management Unit (CZMU) Leo Brewster said his department in collaboration with the University of the West Indies has been closely monitoring the situation through a just-ended five-year coral reef survey.
Though an analysis of the survey is yet to be completed, it is expected to shed some light on the changing conditions of the island’s coral reef system over the period.
The stakes are high, given the outsized importance of coral reefs to islands like Barbados. Corals are living organisms in intricate city-like structures that provide critical habitats, food chains, and breeding grounds for countless species of fish and other marine life.
Beyond their huge ecological value, coral reefs play vital unseen roles in the island’s economy, from helping to protect coastlines to sustaining fishing and tourism. Now, these delicate ecosystems are facing unprecedented threats from climate change with mass bleaching events devastating reefs worldwide.
In the US, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) researchers have raised an alarm following a discovery that the world is experiencing its fourth global coral bleaching event, caused by abnormally high ocean temperatures.
The NOAA reported that mass bleaching has been identified in at least 53 countries over the past year.
Reef bleaching, which occurs when the water in which they live becomes too warm, has also been a concern to Barbados since 2023, Brewster confirmed.
“We were hit quite hard on the majority of our reef with the bleaching and we’re noticing now that the water temperatures are still very warm this time of year. We have a coral reef early warning buoy that monitors the temperature and it has been showing that where the water should be cooler now, it is much warmer than it ought to be,” he told Barbados TODAY.
Brewster added that there was a heightened concern as summer approaches as the continuous intensification of the heat on the waters will have significant implications for the recovery of the reef system and its ability to withstand storm waves, especially during the hurricane season.
The CZMU director said the reefs are also being threatened by groundwater pollution off the island. This increases the presence of turf algae in the underwater ecosystem, resulting in oxygen depletion or diseases.
Brewster added: “The reef systems themselves are being attacked by a disease called stony coral tissue loss disease which attacks the older and larger corals and therefore, the ones that provide the anchorage for the reef. This means that those corals are dying and we’ve had extensive death from this across all of our reefs over the last seven to nine months. So that’s another cause for concern right there.”
In the search for solutions, Brewster said the CZMU has issued research permits to two private entities to establish a coral nursery, both of which have been doing well in working towards out-planting coral fragments.
That progress is now being threatened by the existing crisis, said the CZMU chief.
“There’s a lot of talk about doing coral reef regeneration and restoration, or fragmenting and transplanting them out as a means of recovery, and though the mechanisms work really well in terms of opportunities for reef growth, with these global phenomena impacting us, it is easy to kill off all the work that you’ve done.”
Encouraging greater reporting at the community level, especially among divers who may have noticed additional changes to the coral reefs, Brewster noted that early detection of new and existing issues can result in damage prevention in some cases. Through the Barbados Marine Spatial Planning Process, the CZMU plans to bring attention to the need for preserving and conserving the environment with the hope that through different activities, people will become more aware of the need to save corals.
