{"id":547191,"date":"2010-04-29T07:36:33","date_gmt":"2010-04-29T11:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3315"},"modified":"2010-04-29T07:36:33","modified_gmt":"2010-04-29T11:36:33","slug":"protected-belize-reef-provides-model-for-conservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/547191","title":{"rendered":"Protected Belize reef provides model for conservation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/04\/27\/science\/earth\/27reef.html?partner=rss&amp;emc=rss\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/images\/2010\/04\/27\/science\/27reefspan\/27reefspan-articleLarge.jpg\" width=\"381\" align=\"right\" height=\"208\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/eenews.net\/climatewire\/2010\/04\/28\/10\/\" >ClimateWire<\/a>: A ban on fishing in the marine reserve at Glover&#8217;s Reef in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eoearth.org\/article\/Belize\">Belize<\/a> has  made it a prime spot for wildlife to flourish and for researchers to  see the natural workings of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eoearth.org\/article\/Coral_reef\">reef<\/a> ecosystem. But even more, it offers  a test case for the prospects of similar &#8220;no take&#8221; reserves around the  world.<\/p>\n<p>The 17,500-acre area with no fishing is just 20 percent of the  87,000-acre marine protected area in Glover&#8217;s Reef, an atoll about 28  miles off the Belize coast. In the rest of the region, some restricted  fishing is allowed. Partly because of that, scientists say Glover&#8217;s Reef  is one of the healthiest of its kind, with plentiful fish populations.<\/p>\n<p>For example, shark populations remained steady at the reef while  they dropped around the rest of the world, according to an annual shark  study in the Caribbean. A study of live coral published in February&#8217;s <em>Proceedings  of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em> found that marine protected  areas help coral populations, although it can take decades for the  results to be known. The no-take approach builds up fish stocks, which  then repopulate nearby fisheries, and helps revive the entire region.<\/p>\n<p>Still, officials say it can be difficult to enforce the fishing  restrictions. And the region has been heavily polluted and cover coral  is low. A recent analysis found that 63 percent of Belize&#8217;s reefs are  threatened by human activity (Erik Olsen, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/04\/27\/science\/earth\/27reef.html?partner=rss&amp;emc=rss\" ><em>New  York Times<\/em><\/a>, April 26). <strong>&#8211; JP<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"akst_link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3315&amp;akst_action=share-this\"  title=\"E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc.\" id=\"akst_link_3315\" class=\"akst_share_link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Share This<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ClimateWire: A ban on fishing in the marine reserve at Glover&#8217;s Reef in Belize has made it a prime spot for wildlife to flourish and for researchers to see the natural workings of the reef ecosystem. But even more, it offers a test case for the prospects of similar &#8220;no take&#8221; reserves around the world. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4055,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4055"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}