Coral reef update

The following article is excerpted from email sent to Tom Whitaker from The Coral Reef Alliance.

There is plenty of bad news about coral reefs this year, but here is some good news. After years of work by many different organizations and individuals, President Clinton has issued an Executive Order creating the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Reserve, the single largest nature preserve ever established in the United States.

The Reserve is approximately 84 million acres, of which approximately 4% or 3.3 million acres are protected ``coral reef habitats''. The NWHI Reserve is the largest protected area established in U.S. history.

While some are concerned that the protection offered by the Reserve is not complete enough, this is certainly a big step in the right direction for coral reefs. One of CORAL's primary goals is to build public awareness of the value of coral reefs and the need to protect them. We are happy that this growing public awareness is starting to turn into action, such as the creation of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Reserve.

Thank you for your support of CORAL. With your help we can make sure that there will be more good news about coral reefs in the years to come.

Sincerely,
Stephen Colwell
Executive Director
The Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL)

Other information on the size of the NWHI Coral Reef Reserve:

• Approximate Area of the Reserve:
  • 131,800 square statute miles
  • 99,500 square nautical miles
  • 341,360 square kilometers
  • 84,365,000 acres
• Approximate length of the Reserve: 1200 miles long
• Approximate width of the Reserve: 100 miles wide

Some comparisons - The NWHI Reserve is:

• Larger than Florida and Georgia combined
• About half the area of Texas
• About as long as the distance from Seattle to Los Angeles
• As large as all of the U.S. National Park areas combined
• 7 times the area of the 13 current National Marine Sanctuaries
• Almost as large as the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park = 102,043 square nautical miles (NWHI Reserve is 99,500 square nautical miles)
• 2nd largest marine protected area in the world
• Largest protected area in US history

For more information see:

White House announcement

President Clinton's Speech on NWHI Coral Reef Reserve

- If you've already made a contribution for your 2001 membership, please accept our thanks. It is through the generosity of our members that we are able to continue working to keep coral reefs alive.

If you have not yet renewed your membership for 2001, you can do so online at http://www.coral.org/Renew.shtml. To thank you, we'll send the 2001 CORAL Calendar.

To support the work of CORAL, you can make a gift online.