Ocean scientists were urged Tuesday to go beyond their own scientific research and inject themselves into the political realm to give politicians and decision-makers the information they need to make the best policy decisions.
Robert Richmond, director of the University of Hawaii’s Kewalo Marine Laboratory, used his own research on coral reefs to illustrate how it can be done in a speech before hundreds of scientists from around the world at the 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting at the Hawai‘i Convention Center.
Richmond, president of the International Society for Reef Studies, said there’s a need to teach scientists to be better communicators.
In discussing his own research, Richmond described talking to chiefs in Palau, community members in Guam and Pohnpei and to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in East Honolulu to accomplish successes in support of coral reefs on the local level.
He urged the scientists to work with local organizations, elected and traditional leaders, and stakeholders to effect change. "It requires partnerships. I’ve worked with groups I never intended to, from economists to cultural practitioners."
Richmond said that researchers shouldn’t just look to preserve the most pristine ecosystems, either. He said there are many marginal environments worth saving.
"These marginal places are going to have genotypes that will be extremely important for the future," he said, adding that his students examined Honolulu Harbor after last year’s molasses spill. "It was amazing how much coral was there before."
But while working at the local level is important, he said, you can’t ignore the global picture. Richmond said that when he looks at the bigger picture in the coral reef world, he fears we may be facing a genetic collapse similar to the Irish potato famine.
"Every time something happens on the regional level, with mass mortality of organisms, we’re not only losing populations and individuals, we’re losing gene types," he said. "My fear is one morning we’ll wake up and find a whole bunch of corals gone and we didn’t see it coming."
Richmond said the world has lost more than 50 percent of its coral reef cover since 1900 and that if everything stays the way it is, coral reef cover will diminish to 10 percent coverage by 2070. If you add in the effects of global warming, the same outcome will occur a decade earlier, he said.
Local watershed management successes may improve things for a while, he said, but the models show they eventually will be overwhelmed by acidification and the effects of global warming if nothing is done.
