Katherine
Muzik, Ph.D.
Kauai, Hawaii
We must defend
the sacred and spectacularly beautiful Soft Corals of Gangjeong!
My unbearably
sad experiences witnessing coral reef devastation around the world, and
especially the irreversible destruction of the Okinawan reefs which I studied
for over three decades, motivates me to rise in defense of these beautiful Jeju
corals. We must defend them. They are spectacularly beautiful, and alive!
Corals have no
voice of their own, but all too frequently, scientific specialists, intimidated
by the government institutions in their respective countries, cannot speak out.
As a specialist in Octocorallia (soft corals), it is my duty, and my honor, to
help the local villagers defend their environment and their way of life, and
their beautiful octocorals to which I am so devoted.
I have been
studying Octocorallia all around the world, in both the Atlantic (Florida,
Puerto Rico, Belize, Mexico, Jamaica, Bermuda) and the Pacific (the Philippines,
Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia, Thailand, Chuuk, Hawaii, Japan and Okinawa) for
42 years. I can state unequivocally, based on my personal observations and a
review of pertinent scientific literature, that Jeju’s octocoral assemblages
are unique, spectacular, and worthy of special protection. They form the
largest and most spectacular temperate Octocoral forests known on Earth. Particularly
convincing are Dr. Jun-Im Song’s prolific and exhaustive reports on their
taxonomy, reproduction and distribution, replete with numerous photographs and
detailed topographical maps. My recent
communications to discuss the flourishing Guangjeong octocorals with scientists
and underwater photographers, working in Australia, the Red Sea, Taiwan, Micronesia,
Japan and Indonesia, all serve to confirm my words.
So peculiar
and surprisingly beautiful are Jeju’s Octocoral forests that they were
designated as Natural Monument 442 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. They
feature high coral coverage on a substrate of ancient Andesite lava, and depend
on the warm and rich Tsushima Current, a branch of the Kuroshio, to form
diverse habitats from 5 to 60m deep. Unlike tropical coral reefs, Jeju’s temperate
octocoral assemblages are unusual in being dominated by species without
zooxanthellae (symbiotic algae) in their tissues. Lacking these algae to provide them nutrients, they must capture
food with their typical, eight (hence, “octo”-corals) feathery tentacles around
the mouths of each flower-like polyp animal forming a coral colony. They are
sessile suspension-feeders, meaning that each coral is fixed in one position
for its lifetime, and its polyps capture food (plankton and dissolved organic
matter) as it passes by in the ocean currents.
Their presence is quintessential as habitat for other marine life,
including other invertebrates and fishes, very much like trees in a forest
provide home for other creatures.
However, because
they are permanently attached, octocorals are unfortunately unable to escape
the threats of man’s activities. They are defenseless. Construction and operation of the proposed
125-acre commercial port and military facility would bring them certain
disaster, and in fact, already has.
Recently,
typhoon Bolaven wrecked seven 8,800 ton caissons made of cement, and sent them
along with thousands of huge cement tetrapods, crashing
down into the sea, causing havoc and destruction which can only worsen with
continued construction activities.
Apart from the
devastating typhoon, the Base at Jeju had already brought Okinawa-style
destructive shoreline development. Nearly all the shoreline around the main
island of Okinawa, where I lived for eleven years, is lined with cement. Huge
cement tetrapods and storm walls, huge tracts of reclaimed land blanketed in
cement, and massive cement port facilities characterize the Okinawan seaside.
Will Jeju’s pretty southern coastline soon resemble Okinawa’s?
Construction
of the proposed port activities would continue to load the waters with lethal
sediments during the planned 4-year construction phase. We must stop construction! It is
destruction! These toxic sediments will be kept re-suspended by continuous
ship-traffic after construction, not to mention by the storms and typhoons,
which are increasing in power and frequency. And, the completed port will
surely alter the currents which bring the corals their crucial plankton diet,
and which are essential for distribution of their planktonic larvae.
Shoreline
cement construction projects not only alter water currents and destroy corals,
they also destroy terrestrial habitats. For example, the insatiable need for
rock to make cement has led to decimation of mountains in northern Okinawa.
Also, kilning of rock used for cement with coal has contributed to intolerable
increases in atmospheric pollution and mercury pollution in our seas and our
seafood, worldwide. The proposed Jeju Base construction will require massive
amounts of cement. From where will the cement rock, and the coal for the Jeju
port be obtained? What other habitats will be ruined? How much more air and
water pollution will surely result?
I first fell
in love with the purple octocoral “sea fans”, over 60 years ago, as a child
playing in the pristine blue waters of Puerto Rico. I was fascinated, watching
them dance and sway in the ocean currents. To see the demise, worldwide, of
these beautiful marine creatures, in just my lifetime, by pollution, global
warming, acidification, and now, military-industrial greed, is
heartbreaking. Given the accelerated
pace of deterioration of coral reefs everywhere, how can we allow one of the
most beautiful octocoral forests in the world, which provides natural, cultural
and economic resources to a community and a country, to be destroyed forever?
