What you are doing for coral reefs: The first special environmental achievement contest is a chance for you to win recognition and prizes for your efforts such as to reduce energy use and bring about other measures to improve the environment through your own activities and those undertaken with your family and friends, schools and others who have made a positive difference to our environment. See "Contests" where you will find the super first prize and others that will be announced. News and Solutions Center Daily news from international news sources and from individuals around the world will keep you informed about reefs and their conditions. |
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Horizon International’s Magic Porthole coral reef playing cards with intriguing, fun photographic mirror-images are providing a new chance to explore life in coral reefs. Launched in December in advance of the international Year of the Reef (IYOR) 2008, the cards, printed in the United States, are being sold by museums, aquaria and a wide variety of outlets and can be purchased here on the Magic Porthole Web Shop page. |
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Professor Charles Sheppard of the University of Warwick, UK, responded to what he perceived as the need to have a good, comprehensive source of identification for the main reef occupiers and builders of Caribbean reefs, namely corals, soft corals and sponges by developing Coralpedia. |
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The small Pacific Island nation of Kiribati has become a global conservation leader by declaring the Phoenix Islands a protected area to ensure its biological diversity and sustainability. It is a California-sized ocean wilderness of pristine coral reefs and rich fish populations threatened by over-fishing and climate change. |
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Scientists at the National Coral Reef Institute are currently growing more than 400 corals from the larval stage as part of NOAA-funded research, and will transplant them to restore damaged coral reefs. Producing juvenile corals from the larval stage for transplantation is better for the health and longevity of coral reefs because it produces new coral, rather than moving around already existing fragments collected in the field. |
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An international team of Australian and Israeli researchers has discovered what could be the aphrodisiac for the biggest moonlight sex event on Earth. An ancient light-sensitive gene has been isolated by researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) that appears to act as a trigger for the annual mass spawning of corals across a third of a million square kilometres of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, shortly after a full moon. |
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President George W. Bush created the world’s largest marine conservation area off the coast of the northern Hawaiian Islands in order to permanently protect the area’s pristine coral reefs and unique marine species. On June 15, 2007, the President used his authority under the Antiquities Act to designate the area a national monument. The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument encompasses nearly 140,000 square miles of U.S. waters, including 4,500 square miles of relatively undisturbed coral reef habitat that is home to more than 7,000 species. As of February 2008, with the establishment of the Kiribati preserve, it is now the second largest marine conservation area. |
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The FKNMS was charged with crafting a management plan to provide for the continued public and private use of the Sanctuary while ensuring adequate resource protection. The Sanctuary’s authorizing legislation directed managers to consider using temporal and geographic zoning to achieve these goals. |
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Bonaire National Marine Park is considered by many to be an exemplary model for marine protected areas. Tourism plays a primary role in its success. |
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Reef fish and other marine species can breathe easier with the introduction of a fishing ban around Apo Reef, the largest coral reef in the Philippines and the second largest contiguous reef in the world after the Great Barrier Reef. |
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Horizon International announced the launch of its Magic Porthole coral reef playing cards with photographic mirror-images of coral reef creatures. Prowling barracuda, shrimp and goby fish working together for survival, a frogfish dangling a lure to catch his prey, clown fish securing themselves in anemones, a cleaner shrimp cleaning the teeth of a Morey eel, and corals in their closed daytime posture and at night when their polyps full of water make their tentacles fan out to catch plankton are among the 52 unique pictures on both versions of the decks of cards. They can be purchased at several museums, aquariums and dive shops and a variety of stores and here on the Magic Porthole Web Shop page. |
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Microbial profiles serve as the ecological version of the human genome project."Now microbes can be studied by what they can do not who they are," said Lita Proctor, an National Science Foundation program director. |
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Trade in red and pink corals prized as jewelry for 5,000 years will be restricted to try to help the species recover after drastic over-exploitation, a United Nations wildlife conference, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species(CITES,) agreed on June 15, 2007. |
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| What Is Magic Porthole™? • Wonders of Coral Reefs • Episodes & Games • IYOR • News Ecoknowledge Cards • Resources • Exhibit • Contests • Shop • Advisory Board • Credits |
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