The Right to Biodiversity... Coral

Last week two public meetings occurred, one in Hawaii and one in Florida,

to access the threat of extinction of 82 species of coral

in the Indo-Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans.

Several coral species are likely to go extinct by the year 2100,
due primarily to ocean warming and acidification. 

 The root threat to coral is increased human population.

Putting these corals on the list of endangered or threatened species

helps their chance for recovery.

The process to get a species listed as threatened/endangered is long and complex.
I will try to explain it briefly here.

In Oct. 2009, the Center for Biological Diversity gave a petition 
 to the U.S. government's National Marine Fisheries Service,
proposing to list 83 coral species
found in U.S. waters as threatened or endangered.
This was based on research assembled by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature.

coral polyps

The Fisheries Service then made a  Review Team of experts
to assess each coral species' status and possibility for extinction by 2100.
A huge, formal Review Report was published, end of 2011.
At present, the public meetings with scientists and others is part of the examination period to make sure all the top science data is assessed. Finally, the Fisheries Service may propose a list of species (around Dec. 2012) which should become "threatened" or "endangered" and therefore protected 
by law under the 1973 U.S. Endangered Species Act.
More comments and public hearings,
and then the U.S. government will make it law,
maybe a year later
in 2014.

Bleached coral hurt from warming oceans.

A 4-5 year process passes while species die unprotected.
But hey, at least we do something.
Thanks to petitions and the Center for Biological Diversity,
based in Tucson, Arizona.