A boat captain frees
a bumphead sunfish,
also called a mola,
from a net. After
spending a night in
the Verde Island
Passage, southwest
of Manila, he and his
crew of more than
two dozen caught only
about two bushels
of fish, plus the sunfish,
which typically is
not eaten in the Phil-
ippines. Overfishing
has depleted some of
the archipelago’s once
abundant waters.I am gleaning too—hoping to learn how coral
reefs might be preserved at a time not just of
increasing exploitation but also of human-driven
changes in the very ocean itself. Warming seas,
acidifying seas, rising seas—these are the darker
shadows that fall across the world’s coral reefs.
Off the coast of Palawan, the fingerlike island
on the western flank of the Philippines, I caught
a preview of what’s coming. I dived in a sepul-
chral world of bleached corals. Sea temperatures
had exceeded the threshold at which coral pol-
yps part company with the symbiotic algae that
give them their kaleidoscopic colors. The corals
were ice white. Streams of slime wafted from
their dying heads. Even the fish seemed dazed
in that monochrome landscape.
Some coral scientists say that mass bleach-
ing events, which used to happen once every
few decades, soon may happen every year, as
the concentration of atmospheric carbon diox-
ide continues to increase. What rising sea tem-
peratures don’t kill, acidification will. Reefs will
reach a tipping point where the carbonate coral
structure starts to dissolve faster than it can be
formed. When that happens, they will begin to
disintegrate. The most diverse ecosystem in
the ocean—a planetary feature for 240 million
years—will start to disappear.
Can this dystopian story have a different end-
ing? Or at least be delayed? Humans are engaged
in the biggest gamble of all time, and the stakes
could not be higher.AN UNDERSEA SPLENDOR, UNDER STRESS 79