“Throughout the Caribbean, we have seen a massive decrease in coral coverage,” says Michael Webster, executive director of the Coral Reef Alliance, a nonprofit organisation that works on reef conservation in Honduras. The bleaching could soon get worse: in September the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began issuing coral bleaching alerts all along the Mesoamerican Reef. “Climate change happens long term,” Arias-González says. According to the Healthy Reef Initiative (HRI), an alliance of more than 30 organisations that monitors the Mesoamerican Reef, macroalgae cover has nearly doubled in the last 10 years across the region. “Climate change is a world issue,” says Webster.

Source: The Guardian December 27, 2017 10:30 UTC