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Four Degrees Of Degradation We are here to watch the undersea world and to learn from it.... We
are here to learn how we, the people, affect this wonder and how to
prevent it all from going away. Coral reef ecosystems around the world are suffering. Overfishing disrupts the natural balance. Pollution and rising sea temperatures can lead to coral sickness and open the door to the spread of algae that can overrun reefs.  
In 2003, Enric Sala, an associate professor at Scripps' Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, devised a plan to conduct a new ecological assessment of the reefs of Palmyra, an atoll in the central Pacific Ocean a thousand miles south of Hawaii. It's the sort of tropical paradise seen on travel brochures as the ultimate dream getaway destination, but in this paradise, there are no tourists. Palmyra is administered by the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife and was recently purchased by the Nature Conservancy for preservation as a model marine ecosystem largely undisturbed by human influence. Ten residents currently live on the atoll although during World War II it accommodated some 6,000 military personnel. Stuart Sandin, who had recently obtained his doctoral degree at Princeton University, was hired to help lead the project with the newly formed Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium. According to Sala, the instant Sandin was hired is when things "exploded." Along with their colleagues, Scripps professors Nancy Knowlton and Jeremy Jackson, they began exploring ideas of expanding their assessment to the greater region around Palmyra. They theorized that they would find a spectrum of degradation. On one end of the spectrum they pinpointed Kiritimati (also known as Christmas Island). Part of the country of Kiribati, it is the largest of the Line Islands and believed to be the largest atoll in the world. With 5,100 residents and vigorous fishing activities, Kiritimati was targeted as a model for studying how human activities alter coral reefs.  
On the other end of the spectrum is Kingman Reef, a mostly submerged reef annexed by the United States in 1922. Uninhabited, Kingman offered the researchers a chance to document one of the few virtually undisturbed places on Earth. 
Completing the choice of locations was the selection of Tabuaeran, or Fanning Island. With 2,500 residents, its population size is midway between that of heavily populated Kiritimati and unspoiled Kingman. The four destinations thus became a "perfect gradient" where different degrees of human disturbance could be analyzed. In the months leading to the expedition, the team spent countless hours hammering out logistics, from securing passage aboard the White Holly, a former U.S. Navy yard freighter ship built during World War II, to raising money by impressing the importance of their research on donors willing to fund a thousand-mile diving expedition, an exploratory scientific venture rarely undertaken these days. Then came the task of recruiting a "dream team" of scientists to join the cruise. Such a group would provide expertise from the predators at the top of the food chain down to microbes. "Our perspective was to bring in some of the best people that work across the Pacific Ocean to document everything from sharks to viruses the entire ecosystem," said Sandin.
Next Page: 'We were all like children on that boat - discovering the world.' |
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:: © 2009 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. All Rights Reserved.
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