Stepping back from the acidic abyss

If you have to issue a declaration of some sort, Kona, on the big island of Hawaii, isn’t a shabby place to do it. Especially if the topic involves coral reefs and ocean acidification.

The venue: The 20th meeting of the US Coral Reef Task Force, set up in 1988 to coordinate the nation’s efforts to preserve these important marine habitats. Today, a group of prominent marine scientists presented the task force with its “Honolulu Declaration on Ocean Acidification and Reef Management. ” The four-page document (five if you count references) puts its main focus on what conservation managers can do now to try to ensure some level of resilience in their reef networks as oceans acidify. In many ways, it’s the latter that distinguishes this from other declarations of angst over acidification.

Scientists Unveil “Honolulu Declaration” To Address Ocean Acidification

The increase in global carbon dioxide emissions is not just damaging the Earth’s climate, but also threatening the very fabric of our oceans. Today, The Nature Conservancy (http://www.nature.org/), along with a dozen of the world’s top marine scientists, introduced key findings and recommendations to tackle ocean acidification as part of the “Honolulu Declaration on Ocean Acidification and Reef Management” revealed at the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force meeting in Kona, Hawai’i.