Expertise: Corals

 

Dr. Tom Goreau is the President of the Global Coral Reef Alliance and the Coordinator of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development Partnership in New Technologies for Small Island Developing States. He has published around 200 papers in areas of coral reef ecology, global climate change, changes in global ocean circulation, marine diseases, community-based coastal zone management, scientific photography and other fields. He holds patents with the late Wolf Hilbertz for new methods for preserving coral reefs from global warming, pollution and restoring marine ecosystems.

 

“We are all aware of the collapse of fisheries all over the world due to overfishing. But few realize that global climate change is also destroying the most productive marine ecosystems. Global warming kills coral reefs and as thicker layers of warm surface water blocks the deep nutrients from reaching the surface, which fuel the entire food chain starting with plankton that ends in fish - we are killing the ocean from the top down and the bottom up at the same time.”

 

For more on Dr Goreau's work visit The Coral Reef Alliance.