This story is a part of a sequence designed to introduce the views of alumni from the Nationwide Geographic Society and The Nature Conservancy’s world youth externship program. Every visitor writer is an rising chief in conservation and storytelling.
Cozumel, Mexico is a small island on the Japanese aspect of the Yucatan Peninsula with a complete inhabitants of 88,000. The island is a part of the better Mesoamerican Barrier Reef system and has among the most various reefs on the planet with over 35 endemic species of coral.
Because of these reef circumstances, Cozumel turned well-known within the diving group as a “must-see” dive location.
My dad, the one that launched me to diving, steadily tells me tales of his adventures as a younger dive grasp within the Nineteen Nineties and by no means fails to say that his all-time favourite diving location was Cozumel. My childhood was stuffed with tales about its marvel: instances when he would leap within the water and the one factor he might see in entrance of him was the silvery shine from the big faculties of fish. The primary time my dad noticed a hammerhead shark was diving at Santa Rosa Wall the place he noticed lots of of them education.
In 2021 after the COVID-19 quarantine interval, I made a decision to get scuba licensed and end my open water dives in Cozumel. My first open water dive was behind my resort on the Villa Blanca Reef, lower than one mile away from the cruise ship docks. I used to be so excited to leap within the water for the primary time in Cozumel to lastly see what my dad had been describing for years, however once I reached the sandy backside it was barren and what little coral was left was lined in algae.
Why This Undertaking?
Scuba diving made me fall in love with the ocean and instilled in me a drive to guard it. Impressed by Cozumel, I made a decision to use for an ocean conservation externship with the Nationwide Geographic Society and The Nature Conservancy in the summertime of 2023. The principle focus of the externship was a analysis mission of our selecting. I selected Cozumel’s reefs and started having conversations with my dive masters on what should be blamed for reef destruction. It was by way of these conversations with locals that I used to be capable of study concerning the enhance in quantity of cruise ships and in the end determined to focus my analysis on the impacts of the cruise business on Cozumel’s reefs.
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What’s the Downside?
Over 80% of Cozumel’s coral inhabitants has died within the final 40 years because of vacationer improvement on the island, particularly cruise improvement. On account of its shut proximity to the resort city of Cancun, Cozumel started setting up its first cruise pier within the early Nineteen Seventies. Cozumel now has three cruise piers, the Worldwide Pier, Punta Langosta, and Puerta Maya, and has turn into the biggest cruise vacation spot within the Western Caribbean with shut to five million guests yearly.
In 2020, the Mexican Ministry of Setting and Pure Sources authorised a proposal for the development of a fourth cruise pier in Cozumel even if present cruise piers are solely reaching 54% of their complete capability. The fourth cruise pier is projected to be constructed on a UNESCO heritage website the place native advocacy teams who’ve surveyed the area discovered 20 completely different species of coral, together with two on the critically endangered checklist. The development of the fourth pier is basically feared by locals who’ve seen how the present fee of cruise exercise has already prompted an ecological imbalance for coral reefs.
Over 97% of coral populations round present cruise piers have died. In an Atlantic and Gulf Fast Reef Evaluation (AGRRA) survey finished in 2022, just one dive website left in Cozumel was ranked as “superb” on the Wholesome Reef Index (HRI). Over 71% of Mexico’s complete reefs are listed as being in poor or essential form on the HRI.
Cruise Ship Impacts on Coral Reefs
There are three major impacts that cruise ships have on the reef: the dumping of untreated sewage, the unfold of coral illnesses, and direct injury.
Many cruise ships shouldn’t have superior wastewater therapy techniques and as an alternative dump their grey water and untreated sewage immediately into the ocean. Untreated sewage is excessive in vitamins corresponding to nitrogen and phosphorus. An imbalance within the quantity of nitrogen and phosphorus initiates a course of referred to as water eutrophication, or an extra of algal and plant progress. A rise in fleshy macroalgae (FMA) is likely one of the major culprits for coral dying in Cozumel.
Macroalgal domination starves coral of the daylight wanted to proceed rising its calcium carbonate skeleton. The 2022 AGRRA report exhibits that Mexico has 24% FMA cowl, thought-about a “essential” degree, and would want a 77% lower of FMA to be ranked “good” on the HRI. Water sampling finished by CCRRP confirms that water high quality across the island is poor, contributing to declining coral populations.
One other situation attributable to cruise ships is the unfold of coral illnesses.
Cruise ships have a ballast tank to advertise hydrostatic stability of the ship. Water is taken in to the ballast tank at an preliminary port and expelled into the vacation spot port throughout docking. Most Caribbean cruises from the US start in Florida the place there may be Stony Coral Tissue Loss Illness (SCTLD) and White Band Illness. White Band Illness was dropped at Cozumel within the Eighties and has primarily affected elkhorn corals that are at present prone to changing into extinct in Cozumel.
In October 2018, an outbreak of SCTLD introduced by a cruise ship ballast water from Florida prompted 60% lack of Cozumel’s arduous corals in a single yr. SCTLD is believed to be attributable to bacterial pathogens within the water column that create lesions on arduous corals stuffed with alpha-toxins in the end killing coral cells. The presence of SCTLD completely alters the microbial group as micro organism ranges stay excessive, leaving corals susceptible as they proceed to battle off the illness. Because of this corals that don’t look sick should still be at increased threat of dying or collapse as they’re preventing off increased ranges of micro organism within the water column.
Lastly, anchoring and the backwash of propellers causes important direct injury to corals. Anchors steadily smash arduous corals, resulting in a shift from stay corals to macroalgal domination. One cruise ship ran awry 40 miles north of Cozumel and broken 80% of Cancun’s complete coral inhabitants. The impacts of cruise ships on coral reefs have left Cozumel’s remaining coral populations susceptible. Remaining coral colonies are at increased threat of collapse because of limitations in sexual copy, genetic recombination, and the flexibility to adapt to quickly altering environments due to weaker immune techniques.
Options
Cozumel ought to deal with decreasing its FMA cowl by way of bettering water high quality across the island. Lowering ranges of vitamins within the water could be finished by way of the set up of port reception services (PRFs). PRFs accumulate sewage and marine litter for correct therapy at water therapy services. Cozumel can obtain funding by way of the Worldwide Maritime Group’s Technical Cooperation Fund to put in IMO-approved PRFs. After the set up of PRFs, Cozumel ought to observe the Baltic Sea Mannequin. In 2019, the IMO banned all cruise ships from dumping uncooked sewage inside 12 nautical miles of shore within the Baltic Sea with a purpose to enhance water high quality. All ships are required to make the most of PRFs or dump sewage farther from shore.
To deal with the unfold of coral illnesses, ballast administration protocols have to be adopted by all cruise strains. Key protocols embody the prohibition of gathering ballast water in “sizzling spot” zones of coral illness, rinsing of the anchor and anchor chain throughout each retrieval, conducting ballast change at the very least 200 nautical miles away from land, and conserving data of all ballast data to report in any respect ports. Moreover, the funding of native coral restoration packages helps gas analysis for applied sciences aimed toward limiting the unfold of coral illnesses and the repopulation of threatened coral populations.
Restoration and restoration are attainable. Cozumel Coral Reef Restoration Program (CCRRP) has restored over 10,000 corals to the Villa Blanca Reef and has developed antibiotic pastes to restrict the unfold of SCTLD.
Lastly, Cozumel must restrict the quantity of cruise ships docking at their ports in the event that they want to protect the shallow reefs surrounding their island. Reducing the amount of ships coming in and using marine spatial planning (MSP) to create anchoring paths for ships that keep away from damaging coral colonies ought to assist mitigate among the injury being finished to the reefs.
Whereas Cozumel’s reefs are dealing with a big menace with the rising recognition of cruise tourism within the Caribbean, implementing insurance policies centered on minimizing the impacts of cruise ships might present some aid for coral.
By elevating consciousness by way of my externship mission, I hope to succeed in vacationers who journey to the Caribbean to assist them perceive the impacts of cruise journey. I additionally hope that elevated consciousness on the water high quality in Cozumel incentivizes the town council to approve a long-term water infrastructure enchancment plan to start addressing the core situation behind reef degradation in Cozumel.
Uncover the conservation work of different externs from Colombia, the Maldives, and america in Nature Conservancy Journal.
