Tag: coral reefs
Young activists begin campaign for reef-safe sunscreen
(CNS): The student-led environmental advocacy group, Protect Our Future, has launched a new campaign to promote the use of reef-safe sunscreen brands in the Cayman Islands. Sunscreen chemicals, such as oxybenzone and octinoxate, are known to contain nanoparticles that disrupt the growth cycles of reef corals, cause coral bleaching, and lower their defences against diseases […]
CCMI gets €258k grant to expand coral restoration
(CNS): The Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI) has received a grant of €257,949 (CI$228,228) from RESEMBID, the same European Union-funded organisation that recently awarded a grant to the UCCI. The money for CCMI, which has a research facility on Little Cayman, will be used to expand its coral restoration research.
Sea urchins facing fatal mystery threat
(CNS) The long-spined sea urchin (Diadema antillarum) is experiencing another high mortality event throughout the Caribbean, and although it may not have reached the Cayman Islands yet, the Department of Environment is asking people to report any sightings of sick or dead urchins in Cayman waters to help the scientists collect data.
Battle against coral disease makes slow progress
(CNS): For over 18 months the Department of Environment has been battling the devastating impact of stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) on local reefs and that persistent work is beginning to have an effect, officials have revealed. Direct application of antibiotic ointments to living corals that are not infected, repeated daily by the response […]
Oceans need quiet to help protect reefs
(CNS): A study by scientists at the Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI) on Little Cayman has highlighted the need for quiet in the sea to help reefs and the marine life around them cope with the growing threat to their survival from climate change, disease, acidification and overfishing. The Quiet Oceans Study results found that […]
Dedicated DoE team continues work on SCTLD
(CNS): The spread of the stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) across most of the reefs around Grand Cayman is of significant concern, and with very little known about the latest threat to the coral reefs, the Department of Environment now has a dedicated team of ten people solely dedicated to mitigating the spread and impacts on Cayman’s delicate […]
Ship wastewater linked to fatal coral disease
(CNS): Commercial vessels, including cruise ships, could be linked to the virulent and rapidly spreading coral disease that has swept through the Caribbean region over the last two years killing significant amounts of coral reefs in its wake, according to the latest research. Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) has already had a devastating impart […]
Restoration project starting to bear coral
(CNS): The Central Caribbean Marine Institute has said that in its latest dome outplanting project of the endangered staghorn coral, the scientists saw an 89% survival rate after six months for over 120 corals restored onto the reef. CCMI has been working on coral restoration for eight years now and has learned much about this emerging but […]
Fragments of endangered coral rescued
(CNS): Researchers at the Department of Environment are hopeful that pieces of endangered pillar coral rescued from areas of reef infected with Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) in the North Sound can be saved. During the rescue mission last week in a heavily infected area by Rum Point, around ten pieces of this rare, […]
Eden Rock coral smothered in boat incident
(CNS): The Department of Environment is calling on all experienced divers to help save coral at Eden Rock today, following a recent tug and ship encounter in the George Town Harbour, in which a large amount of sand from the seabed was churned up and deposited on live coral, blocking out the sun. The sand […]
New coral disease found off north coast
(CNS): Department of Environment researchers believe that Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD), a major threat to coral reefs in the region, has turned up in local waters. Following a potential disease report by Tom Byrnes from Cayman Marine Lab on 21 June, the department’s own marine experts visited the location off the north coast […]
