Today's Independent carries an article on the widespread disappearance of coral reefs. Another example of the depletion of our common wealth through the destruction of biodiversity:

"It might look like a tropical paradise, but underneath the sparkling blue waves something truly grim is happening in the Caribbean. Four-fifths of the coral on Caribbean reefs has disappeared in the past 25 years in a phenomenal saga of destruction, British-based researchers reveal today.

Human actions are almost certainly responsible for most of it. And the size of the loss, the first to be accurately quantified over a very wide area anywhere, has astonished even scientists who have been studying the global decline of coral.

Coral reefs are thought of as "the rainforests of the sea" because of their richness in wildlife, and the figure is equivalent in marine terms to saying that 80 per cent of the Amazon rainforest has disappeared."

July 18, 2003 | 01:01 PM