TEMPO.CO, Japaratinga, Brazil - Brazil is bracing for what may be its worst-ever coral bleaching event as extremely warm waters damage reefs in the country's largest marine reserve – threatening the region's tourism and fishing revenues.
With the world's corals now suffering a fourth mass bleaching event in three decades, some had hoped Brazil's reefs would be spared as they were during previous global bleaching events
Bleaching is triggered by high water temperatures that cause corals to expel the colorful algae living in their tissues. Without the algae delivering nutrients to the corals, the corals begin to starve.
"I have never had anyone call me about bleaching in Brazil," said Greg Asner, director of the Allen Coral Atlas program that monitors reefs globally by satellite.
But huge swaths of corals have turned bone white along Brazil's vast Atlantic coastline from the northeast states of Alagoas to Rio Grande do Norte, including the 120-kilometer-long (75-mile) marine park called Coral Coast.
Four scientists monitoring the corals told Reuters that this year was on track to be the worst bleaching on record for Coral Coast and possibly the entire country.
Sea temperatures have smashed records in the last year as climate change intensifies the El Nino phenomenon that normally warms the globe every six or seven years.
Brazil's reefs are somewhat isolated from those in the more well-known Caribbean and have the highest percentage of corals found nowhere else on Earth, including at least seven species threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The Philippines is one of the most marine resource-rich countries in the world.
Nearly 100% of the corals in some parts of the marine park have been affected, and some have begun dying, said Miguel Mies, research director at the Coral Vivo Institute. A less famous reef off the tip of Brazil near Natal city is being hit even worse, he said.
Divers on the Coral Coast have measured water temperatures of about 33 degrees Celsius (91.4 Fahrenheit), compared to around 27C (80.6) when corals are most comfortable.
"The bleaching is intense," Pedro Pereira, coordinator of the nonprofit Reef Conservation Project, told Reuters between dives to survey the reef.
"We're seeing the extinction in front of our eyes of such a beautiful and wondrous ecosystem," he said.
