The Earth's coral reefs is facing yet another har,ful disturbance. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) raised alarms about the Earth's earth coral reefs.
Global coral bleaching even was discussed though-out the meeting.
"We are losing huge areas of coral across the U.S., as well as internationally," said Mark Eakin, NOAA's Coral Reef Watch coordinator, quoting climate change and events like the present El Niño as main reasons for the mass die-off.
A new study was published this week concerning the world's vanishing corals. The Scientists that conducted their research in Hawaii and U. S. Virgina Islands discovered that a chemical oxybenzone - can be found in more than 3,500 sunscreen products across the world is causing a rapid coral reef depletion.
Coppertone, L'Oreal and Banana Boat are among the popular brands of sunscreen and are extremely harmful to the coral reefs.
It is said in recent reports that this chemical doesn't only kill the corals but it also damages the DNA in adult corals and deform the them in the larval stage so they cannot develop properly.
Even a tiny amount of the chemical oxybenzone can harm the corals. According to a report in the Washington Post, "The equivalent of a drop of water in a half-dozen Olympic-sized swimming pools" was sufficient to cause harm."
Each year, an estimate of 14,000 tons of sunscreen ends up in coral reefs globally.
Lead researcher Craig Downs said, "The use of oxybenzone-containing products needs to be seriously deliberated in islands and areas where coral reef conservation is a critical issue. We have lost at least 80 percent of the coral reefs in the Caribbean. Any small effort to reduce oxybenzone pollution could mean that a coral reef survives a long, hot summer, or that a degraded area recovers."
Keeping sunscreen away from reef systems will be no easy achievement. The use of sunscreen is also an important factor in protecting users from the harmful rays of the sun after prolonged exposure. The beach and sunscreen are always a tag team.
