On the Mesoamerican Reef Health and Management: Responding to the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease meeting held in Belize City with 60 local, regional and international participants.

In recent years, the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease has reported in the Bacalar Chico Marine Reserve and the spread of this disease does not seem to be slowing down.

Earlier this week, Mesoamerican Reef Fund -MAR Fund- and other partners joined forces to discuss how we plan to move forward in light of this very real threat to the health of our marine resources.

Thanks to the Mesoamerican Reef Fund -MAR Fund- and all the partners and donors for making this crucial event possible to plan for our reefs' future.

Channel 5 Belize's Andrea Polanco did an excellent piece on this issue - take a look!

San Pedro Sun: Coral tissue loss disease threatens Belize's Barrier Reef
To find a solution and work out a strategic plan, Belize's foremost marine biologists and researchers gathered with their counterparts of the three other countries which host parts of the 1,000 kilometer long Meso-American Reef (MAR), for the second biennial meeting of the Reef Restoration Network for the MAR region, at the Best Western Biltmore Plaza Hotel in Belize City from Tuesday October 8th to Thursday October 10th. Foremost on the agenda was the development of a MAR regional plan for reef restoration, encouraging complementary efforts to target resources needed to put the plan into effect. The stony coral tissue loss disease first appeared in Florida USA in 2014 and is lethal to over 20 different species of coral, particularly the pillar, star and starlet, and brain corals.

San Pedro Sun: No cure for new coral disease infecting the Belize Barrier Reef System
The health of the Belize Barrier Reef System is becoming more than a priority for the environmentalist community as Belize's reef is under attack by a disease called 'Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease.' The disease is new, and researchers and scientists are still trying to find out what causes it and how to properly treat it. Local biologists teamed up with international counterparts and applied a treatment composed of chorine and shea butter to the affected coral, but after several weeks, they claim the method is not working and are seeking other forms of treatment before the disease spreads to other areas along the Belizean coast. The treatment applied at Bacalar Chico was applied in the form of a paste to the affected areas of the coral to decrease or eliminate the infection. Unfortunately, the remedy was unsuccessful, and biologists in Belize plan to explore another form of method used in Florida.

Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease hits Belize

Since first being detected in 2014 in Florida, the Caribbean has observed the gradual and unstoppable spread of the, Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, reaching as far east as the island of Saint Martin. Last year the disease reached the southern reefs off the coast of Yucatan.

This year, the Belize Fisheries Department and Blue Ventures personnel reported high rates of infection and mortality of coral colonies in the northern part of the Belize Barrier Reef within the Bacalar Chico Marine Reserve.

Resource managers, including marine protected areas managers, are on the lookout for the occurrence of this coral disease that causes tissue loss. The disease leads to high mortality of the 20 hard coral species that are susceptible to the disease, including brain corals.

So far, the branching Acroporid corals seem not to be resistant to the disease. This disease pathogen has not been identified and scientists continue to work to isolate and identify the pathogen. Various treatments are being tested and it is hoped that the pathogen can be identified and a safe and effective treatment can be found.

The progression of the disease has proven to be very rapid and what took over a century to grow, an entire colony, can be completely dead in 15 days to a month. It is believed that the disease is water-borne. Currently, the National Coral Reef Monitoring Network (NCRMN), network of MPA Mangers, Environmental Resource Institute, (ERI), conservation NGO's and the Belize Fisheries Department continue to track the spread of the disease and have formulated a response plan that is focussed on detecting the occurrence, and testing treatments.

Coral reef scientist and climate change specialist, Nadia Bood, of World Wildlife Fund in Belize, noted that this disease adds to pressures already being experienced by the coral reef in Belize from climate change. Alerts were sent out in September and October for Belize to look out for bleaching due to high surface water temperatures.

Bood said "We will need the involvement of all stakeholders, especially fishers and marine tour guides and operators, to assist the Belize Fisheries Department in reporting signs of bleaching and disease."

Bood also urged the private sectors that benefit from the coral reefs ecosystem services, including resorts and property owners on the cayes and along the coast, to incorporate zero-effluent standards and closed sewage systems into their construction. Poor water quality as a result of run-off and sewage leaching has been linked to the spread of other coral reef diseases, since it weakens the health of coral colonies, making them susceptible to disease.

"Ecosystem-based adaptation provides a golden opportunity for countries like Belize to cost-effectively adapt to these harsh changes in the environment using ecosystems such as coral reefs, mangroves and seagrass. This approach benefits multiple stakeholder sectors, including tourism and fisheries, but also affords coastal protection from other potential threats such as storms."

Amandala

"White syndrome" even more catastrophic than sargassum in Quintana Roo
"In the short term, the white syndrome could be more catastrophic than the effects of sargassum in terms of economic losses. but especially when it comes to the death of marine animal species", said marine biologist Nallely Hern�ndez Palacios, deputy director of the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (Conanp) in the state of Quintana Roo. She argued that in both cases the marine ecosystem suffers a high degree of degradation: the syndrome is exclusive to corals, while the sargassum reaches seagrasses and mangroves; in addition, when leachate reaches land, it affects the underground system, and then returns to sea, which contributes to strengthen the coral disease. The expert said that they are already isolating coral colonies in the United States, to be sown after they find the cure against the disease that is killing the reefs of Quintana Roo. The coral reefs are a vital part of the 9.5 billion US dollars per year economic spill, for tourism related activities in the region. "In three months the white syndrome has killed 90 percent of the coral colonies within Isla Contoy National Park, where the Mesoamerican Reef System (Sistema Arrecifal Mesoamericano) begins, covering more than one thousand kilometers along the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras," said marine biologist Wilberto Antele Sangabriel, one the National park's keepers.