“For the Florida Keys’ reefs, overall, the live coral cover has diminished by 50 to 80 percent in the past 10 years,” says Margaret Miller, a coral reef researcher at the National marine Fisheries Service. According to Miller, the destruction is the result of several contributing factors, such as pollution, climate change, over-fishing, and coastal developments.

1.2 million tonnes of coral may have been illegally extracted from reefs located near Malaysia’s protected Semporna Islands Park.

State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjum has formed a committee that will investigate the allegations made by former state Social Services Minister Datuk Kong Hong Ming.

A study proposing a ban on spear guns and gill nets in the Great Barrier Reef is now being criticised by Australian scientists saying its results – which were obtained from Kenya and Papua New Guinea – aren’t relevant to the Great Barrier Reef.

300,000 pounds of rock has been stolen from the bottom of the ocean near Alligator Light and Islamorada off the coast of Florida.

Dubai’s largest reef, consisting of over 1,100 coral-encrusted rocks, has been moved to a new location to protect it from future development. Details of the relocation have been kept secret for more than a year to ensure its success, and the transfer was therefore not announced until today, on World Environment Day.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists visits Green Island each year to enjoy scuba diving and snorkelling among its beautiful reefs, but no sewage treatment exists so an average of 1,500 tons of untreated sewage is flushed into the sea on a daily basis.

Eleven suspected abalone poachers have been arrested in northern California, officials said Friday.

Since the tide was unusually low in Mendocino County, California Department of Fish & Game wardens were aware of the increased risk of poaching activity and kept their eyes on the coast line, including the coral reefs that had become exposed as the water disappeared.

The intricate symbiotic relationship between reef building corals and algae seem to rely on a delicate communication process between the algae and the coral, where the algae is constantly telling the coral that the algae belongs inside it, and that everything is fine. Without this communication, the algae would be treated as any other invader, e.g. a parasite, and be expelled by the coral’s immune system.

A sinking date has now been set for the retired military vessel scheduled to form an artificial reef off Key West in Florida. If everything goes according to plan, Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg – a 523-foot-long military ship that used to track Russian missile launches during the Cold War – will be sunk seven miles (11 km) south of Key West on May 27.

Indonesia will create Southeast Asia’s largest marine park in the Savu Sea, Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Freddy Numberi said on Wednesday at the World Ocean Conference in Manado, Sulawesi.

The Savu Marine National Park will cover 3.5 million hectares in an incredibly diverse area where you can find no less than 500 coral species, over 300 recognized species of fish and ……

Alabama fishermen and scuba divers will receive a welcome present from the state of Alabama in a few years: the coordinates to a series of man-made coral reefs teaming with fish and other reef creatures.

In order to promote coral growth, the state has placed 100 federally funded concrete pyramids at depths ranging from 150 to 250 feet (45 to 75 metres). Each pyramid is 9 feet (3 metres) tall and weighs about 7,500 lbs (3,400 kg).

The Florida legislature has unanimously passed a bill to create the “Florida Coral Reef Protection Act”.

The new act will protect Florida’s coral reefs from boat groundings and injuries caused by anchoring by providing penalties for anchoring on a coral reef or making any other vessel damages the corals. Depending on the nature and extent of the damage, wrongdoers will pay damages ranging form $150 to $250,000.

As part of a reef restoration study, researchers removed 20 specimens of the Caribbean giant barrel sponge from the Conch Reef off of Key Largo, Florida and then re-attached them using sponge holders consisting of polyvinyl chloride piping. The sponge holders were anchored in concrete blocks set on a plastic mesh base. Some sponges were reattached at a depth of 15 meters and some further down at 30 metres.

A NOAA* expedition by has discovered seven new species of Bamboo corals (family Isididae) in the deep waters off Hawaii Six of them may belong to en entirely new genus.

The findings were made within the Papah Naumoku Kea Marine National Monument, one of the biggest marine conservation areas in the world.

A new study from Carl Meyer and Kim Holland of the Hawai’i Institute for Marine Biology encompassing four protected marine sites in Hawai’i reveals that snorkelers and scuba divers only have a low impact on coral reef habitants at these sites and that the impact is limited to comparatively small areas.