Impacts on local community
‘I’ve been working on Coral Reefs for almost 10 years,’ says Alvarez-Filip, ‘Working on these large scale analyses of their condition, on different issues around coral. Coral, he explains, build a structure that all other species live around. ‘Coral reefs are really in nutrient-poor environments, this is a reason that the water is so clear, coral lives with an algae, and this algae produces the nutrients.’ As global warming has increased sea temperature it produces a ‘bleaching’ effect on the coral, killing it. And as the Coral Reef disappears, he explains, so do the fish that feed off the life around it, which also impacts on the local community who depend on fishing.  As the reef recedes, its function as a defence against flooding also diminishes. The effect is felt all along the biological chain.

Local and international solutions
Nevertheless Alvarez-Filip believes that the seriousness of the issue and the wider factor of climate change is not an excuse to do nothing. ‘We also need to look for more local solutions to the problem,’ says Alvarez-Filip. ‘We have the problem of climate change but it is not the only problem coral reefs are facing. There are other problems like constant development, massive building of hotels and houses along the reef. We need to change our attitudes and ameliorate the impact of climate change, but we need to look at activities, both at a local level and at the international scale.’