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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, July 7, 2003

HAWAI'I'S ENVIRONMENT
It's not too late to turn the tide

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Columnist

Human life spans may be too short for people to appreciate humanity's impact on the environment, said oceanographer and coral-reef expert Jeremy Jackson of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

In recent centuries, each generation has seen a decline in the world's environment, but each generation has used as a baseline the way things were when that generation was young.

During an appearance at the recent federal 9th Circuit Judicial Conference at Kaua'i's Hyatt Regency resort, Jackson said his "pristine" is worse than his father's.

The reason for the decline is clear, said Jackson.

"There's only one really important number in the environment, and that's the 6.4 billion people on the planet," he said.

Jackson said the impact of people on the oceans has been devastating. He described four stages in the decline of the oceans, the first of which is the loss of everything big. All the large living things there are in trouble, he said, including turtles, seals, whales and almost all the sought-after fish.

The second impact is the flattening of habitats, which includes the collapse of dying or dead coral reefs and the grading of the ocean floor by trawling operations, which he described as "dragging locomotive-sized pieces of steel across the ocean floor."

The third feature of the decline is the globalization of species — the spread of the world's most aggressive species outside their natural range and into new habitats everywhere. In the Hawaiian Islands, the introduction of alien species has been one of the environmental issues scientists say is most troubling.

Jackson's fourth feature he calls "the rise of slime." As the habitats die and big animals disappear, their successors tend to be toxic bacteria and jellyfish — the same species that were in charge on the planet before large animals evolved.

Jackson described it as going back in time. He said it's not too late to turn the tide, mainly because the most important pieces are still surviving for the re-creation of a healthy environment, although "we all know we're not going to go back to pristine."

"Almost none of the organisms that really matter are extinct. But in 10 years they might be," he said.

Marine biologist Nancy Knowlton, who also spoke at the conference, compared the decline of coral reefs with the decline of tropical rain forests. Collapsing coral ecosystems, she said, are "the canary in the coal mine."

Jan TenBruggencate is The Advertiser's Kaua'i bureau chief and its science and environment writer. Contact him at (808) 245-3074 or e-mail jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.