The Woohoo! Report

Image by Leonard Low via Flickr

Lucky combination of circumstances means corals have unexpectedly grown back within a year.

By Jessica Aldred, guardian.co.uk

Sections of coral reef in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have made a “spectacular” recovery from a devastating bleaching event three years ago, marine scientists say.

In 2006, high sea temperatures caused severe coral bleaching in the Keppell Islands, in the southern part of the reef — the largest coral reef system in the world. The damaged reefs were then covered by a single species of seaweed which threatened to suffocate the coral and cause further loss.

A “lucky combination” of rare circumstances has meant the reef has been able to make a recovery. Abundant corals have reestablished themselves in a single year, say the researchers from the University of Queensland’s Centre for Marine Studies and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS).

“Three factors were critical,” said Dr Guillermo Diaz-Pulido. “The first was exceptionally high regrowth of fragments of surviving coral tissue. The second was an unusual seasonal dieback in the seaweeds, and the third was the presence of a highly competitive coral species, which was able to outgrow the seaweed.”

Coral bleaching occurs in higher sea temperatures when the coral lose the symbiotic algae they need to survive. The reefs then lose their colour and become more susceptible to death from starvation or disease.

The findings are important as it is extremely rare to see reports of reefs that bounce back from mass coral bleaching or other human impacts in less than a decade or two, the scientists said. The study is published in the online journal PLoS one.

“The exceptional aspect was that corals recovered by rapidly regrowing from surviving tissue,” said Dr Sophie Dove, also from CoECRS and The University of Queensland.

“Recovery of corals is usually thought to depend on sexual reproduction and the settlement and growth of new corals arriving from other reefs. This study demonstrates that for fast-growing coral species asexual reproduction is a vital component of reef resilience.”

Last year, a major global study found that coral reefs did have the ability to recover after major bleaching events, such as the one caused by the El Niño in 1998.

David Obura, the chairman of the International Union for Conservation of Nature climate change and coral reefs working group involved with the report, said: “Ten years after the world’s biggest coral bleaching event, we know that reefs can recover – given the chance. Unfortunately, impacts on the scale of 1998 will reoccur in the near future, and there’s no time to lose if we want to give reefs and people a chance to suffer as little as possible.”

Coral reefs are crucial to the livelihoods of millions of coastal dwellers around the world and contain a huge range of biodiversity. The UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment says reefs are worth about $30bn annually to the global economy through tourism, fisheries and coastal protection.

But the ecosystems are under threat worldwide from overfishing, coastal development and runoff from the land, and in some areas, tourism impacts. Natural disasters such as the earthquake that triggered the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 have also caused reef loss.

Climate change poses the biggest threat to reefs however, as emissions of carbon dioxide make seawater increasingly acidic.

Last year a study showed that one-fifth of the world’s coral reefs have died or been destroyed and the remainder are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network says many surviving reefs could be lost over the coming decades as CO2 emissions continue to increase.

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Image via Wikipedia

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, known as the “banker to the poor” for making small loans in impoverished countries, is now doing business in the center of capitalism — New York City.

In the past year the first U.S. branch of his Grameen Bank has lent $1.5 million, ranging from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars, to nearly 600 women with small business plans in the city’s borough of Queens.

People around the country are struggling to repay mortgages and credit card debts, but Grameen America says its loan repayment rate is more than 99 percent.

“While other banks are collapsing, this one remains strong,” Yunus told reporters at a street fair, where about 100 Grameen America borrowers sold wares ranging from food and flowers to clothes and jewelry.

“Microcredit has been one area the crisis has not impacted. The crisis has not touched it, still it is robust as ever,” said Yunus, who started Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983.

Zemia Shoffner received a loan of $2,000 in January from Grameen America, which she used to take a baking class to expand her catering expertise and drum up more business.

“I have been running my business for about three years now and (the course) meant a lot because it makes me more marketable,” Shoffner told Reuters, noting her bad credit meant she could not get a traditional bank loan.

“This has really allowed me to live my dream. I had another job and I wasn’t really happy, so now I really have the freedom to pursue my passion. It means everything,” she said.

GRAMEEN CREDIT UNION?

In Bangladesh Grameen Bank has lent nearly $8 billion, in increments of a few dollars to a few thousand, to millions of poor borrowers — almost all women — to run small businesses. Bangladeshi economist Yunus and his Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

Karen Giral, 20, who is pregnant with her second child and lives in Elmhurst, Queens, has paid off her first loan of $600 and now has a second loan of $1,000. She has used the money to build her business selling Avon products.

“It was a really big help because to save up that much money is … hard,” said Giral, who heard about Grameen America from her mother.

In addition to America, the Grameen Bank operates in Kosovo, Turkey, Zambia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Indonesia.

Microfinance institutions around the world say they are struggling to raise funds for loans. But Grameen Bank in Bangladesh — where 98 percent of loans are repaid — uses deposits to finance loans.

Grameen America now operates by lending out money gathered through donations and money from payments on existing loans. The bank is applying for a U.S. credit union license to generate the deposits it needs to make more loans.

“Microcredit cannot depend on small donations. This is a business, it should be run like a business,” Yunus said.

‘FIRST STEP’

U.S. President Barack Obama recently announced the creation of a $100 million microfinance growth fund for small lenders in the Western Hemisphere to allow them to continue making loans despite the global recession.

“$100 million is a very small amount to start. Grameen Bank in Bangladesh lends more than $100 million a month,” said Yunus, adding that it was a welcome “first step.”

In Queens, Grameen America borrowers must have two forms of identification and a tax return to show their financial situation. They also must open up a bank account that requires them to deposit $2 a week, on top of repaying their loan, to foster a habit of saving.

Leslie Kane, vice president of finance and strategy for Grameen America, said reducing poverty through microfinance banking is not just for developing economies.

“Many Americans say, ‘Oh we don’t have poverty in the United States.’ But we do, just like every country around the world we need to focus on microcredit,” she said.

For Yoly Castillo, 37, a Colombian immigrant who lives in College Point, Queens, a $1,000 loan from Grameen America not only helped her start a clothing business seven months ago but also inspired her to study business administration at college.

“This business has made me open up my horizons, it’s amazing,” said Castillo, who also works part-time as a medical biller and pays back $22 a week on her loan. “I never expected this of myself … . It has given me so much strength.”

(Editing by Mark Egan and Xavier Briand)

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