This is the first of a series of short articles about, or inspired by, the islands of Hawai’i — and the people, plants and animals that inhabit them.
It isn’t eagerly awaited by children, as is Christmas, nor does anyone get to skip work for the day, as we do on Memorial Day or Thanksgiving. But every June 1st is now a day of observance … specifically it is World Reef Awareness Day. And given how spectacular and important our reefs are, taking a few moments, once a year, to appreciate them seems like a good investment of our time.
Coral reefs are scattered around the globe, the largest being the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) which lies off the coast of Queensland, Australia. The GBR is actually a ‘reef system,’ rather than a single reef. It includes nearly 3,000 individual reefs and 900 islands, scattered across 134,634 square miles of ocean water.
If all of the world’s reefs were collected together, they would cover an area slightly larger than the United Kingdom, and just a little smaller than New Zealand. While that is merely one-tenth of one percent of the ocean floor, as many as 25 to 30 percent of all marine animals live in or around the various reefs. In short, the reefs constitute a critical habitat for more than 5,000 species of underwater life.
