IUCN: 96% of Coral Reef Ecosystems Are Critically Endangered

What happened

• The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released the first global Red List of Ecosystems assessment of shallow, warm-water coral reefs.
• It was presented at the CBD COP-17 in Yerevan, Armenia.

Key findings

Item	Detail
Scope	127 reef ecoregions worldwide
Status	96% of reef ecosystems Critically Endangered
Risk	Almost all assessed reefs may collapse by 2075
Main cause	Ocean warming and marine heatwaves, which cause mass bleaching
Other threats	Overfishing, pollution, coastal development and storms

• Major systems such as the Great Barrier Reef, the Coral Triangle and the Red Sea reefs are all Critically Endangered.
• A separate reassessment found 44% of reef-building coral species threatened with extinction.

What is coral bleaching

• Corals live with tiny algae called zooxanthellae, which give them food and colour.
• When the water gets too warm, corals expel these algae and turn white.
• Corals can recover if temperatures fall quickly. Long heat stress kills them.

Static connect

• India's coral reefs: Gulf of Mannar, Gulf of Kachchh, Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• Lakshadweep has atolls. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands have fringing reefs.
• All reef-building corals are listed in Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.
• The IUCN was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Gland, Switzerland.

Exam relevance: UPSC Prelims and GS-3 (Environment); TGPSC, APPSC (Environment, Geography).