Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T21:55:18.723Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ecological Boundaries for Coral-reef Reserves: Principles and Guidelines

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Rodney V. Salm
Rodney V. Salm
Affiliation:
Leader, Marine Conservation Project, IUCN/WWF Conservation for Development Programme P.O. Box 133, Bogor, Indonesia. Currently: Leader, Coastal Zone Management Project,, c/o Department of Tourism, Ministry of Commerce & Industry P.O. Box 550, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As marine conservation activities intensify, planners and managers of protected areas are finding themselves with few guidelines or tools that are specific to the marine realm. Consequently the principles, criteria, and practices, of terrestrial protected areas tend to be transferred to the seas, where they are often inappropriate. In contrast to the situations with at all comparable sites on land, there is a sad shortage of published material on the application of ecological principles to the design and management of marine protected areas.

Using the example of coral reefs, guidelines are presented here in the hope that they will elicit comment and stimulate the publication of similar guidelines for different marine environments.

Coral-reef protected-area boundaries must fulfil two requirements: they must include appropriate coral-reef, confluent and neighbouring habitats, and a sufficient area of each. The first requirement defines the type, and the second the quantity, of habitats to be included in a protected area. Studies in the Chagos Archipelago, Indian Ocean, indicate that, there, the core zone of a protected coral-reef area should encompass 300 ha of diverse reef habitats if preservation of biotic diversity is the principal objective. The buffer-zone size needed will vary according to activities planned within the area, the extent of neighbouring coastal habitats, and the proximity of up-current or otherwise ‘linked’ sources of potential contamination.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1984 , pp. 209 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Banner, A.H. (1974). Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii: urban pollution and a coral reef ecosystem. Proc. 2nd Internal Coral Reef Symp., 2, pp. 685–702.Google Scholar
Connell, J.H. (1978). Diversity in tropical rain-forests and coral reefs. Science, 199, pp. 1302–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davis, G.E. (1977). Anchor damage to a coral reef on the east coast of Florida. Biol. Conserv., 11, pp. 29–34, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glynn, P.W. (1983). Extensive ‘bleaching’ and death of reef corals on the Pacific coast of Panamá. Environmental Conservation, 10(2), pp. 149–54, 3 figs.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goeden, G.B. (1979). Biogeographic theory as a management tool. Environmental Conservation, 6(1), pp. 27–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johannes, R.E. (1975). Pollution and degradation of coral reef communities. Pp. 13–51 in Tropical Marine Pollution (Ed. Wood, E. J. Ferguson & Johannes, R.E.). Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam—Oxford—New York: ix + 192 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
MacArthur, R.H. & Wilson, E.O. (1967). The Theory of Island Biogeography, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA: xi + 203 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Marsh, J.A. Jr & Gordon, G.D. (1974). Marine environmental effects of dredging and power-plant construction. Univ. Guam Mar. Lab. Tech. Rep., 8, 56 pp.Google Scholar
Mitchell, R. & Ducklow, H. (1976). The slow death of coral reefs. Nat. Hist., 85(8), pp. 106–10, illustr.Google Scholar
Ogden, J.C. & Zieman, J.C. (1977). Ecological aspects of coral reef—seagrass bed contacts in the Caribbean. Proc. 3rd Internal Coral Reef Symp., University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA: pp. 377–82, illustr.Google Scholar
Preston, F.W. (1962). The canonical distribution of commonness and rarity. Ecology, 43, pp. 185–215 & 410–32.Google Scholar
Ray, G. Carleton (1976). Critical marine habitats. IUCN Publications New Series, 37, pp. 15–59.Google Scholar
Salm, R.V. (1973). Don't litter the littoral. Animals, 15(1), pp. 28–31, illustr.Google Scholar
Salm, R.V. (1976). The dynamics and management of the Ponta Torres coral reef, Inhaca Island, Moçambique. Mems Inst. Invest. Cient. Moçamb., 12, Serie A, pp. 25–40, illustr.Google Scholar
Salm, R.V. (1980). The Genus—Area Relation of Corals on Reefs of the Chagos Archipelago, Indian Ocean. Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA: viii + 125 pp., illustr. (typescript).Google Scholar
Salm, R.V. (1981). Coastal Resources in Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan: Description, Use, and Management. International Affairs Division, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, Washington, DC, USA: 260 pp., illustr. [Printed in India.]Google Scholar
Salvat, B. (1974). Dégradation des écosystèmes coralliens. Le Courrier de la Nature, 30, pp. 49–62.Google Scholar
Sheppard, C.R.C. (1980). Coral cover, zonation and diversity on reef slopes of Chagos Atolls, and population structures of the major species. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser., 2, pp. 193–205, illustr.Google Scholar
Sheppard, C.R.C. (1981). The reef and soft-substrate coral fauna of Chagos, Indian Ocean. J. Nat. Hist., 15, pp. 607–21, illustr.Google Scholar
Sorokin, Y.I. (1973). Microbiological aspects of the productivity of coral reefs. Pp. 17–45 in Biology and Geology of Coral Reefs, Vol. II, Biology I (Ed. Jones, O.A. & Endean, R.). Academic Press, New York—San Francisco—London: xxi + 480 pp., illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voss, G.L. (1973). Sickness and death in Florida's coral reefs. Nat. Hist., 82(7), pp. 40–7, illustr.Google Scholar
Wiebe, W.J., Johannes, R.E. & Webb, K.L. (1975). Nitrogen fixation in a coral reef community. Science, 188, pp. 257–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar