mushe863
10-12-2011, 02:50 AM
By the starting of the 15th century, native Hawaiian islanders were engaging in sustainable practices to maintain their reefs ushering in 400 annuals of retrieval.
The research, promulgated Monday in the journal PLoS One, shows namely sustainable practices go behind a long course and namely coral reefs may be better proficient to regenerate than formerly thought.
Coral reefs are some of the world's richest ecosystems, supporting a diverse array of marine life, including reef fish and mollusks. But they're extremely susceptible to modern-day menaces such as changing water temperatures, pollution and provocative fishing practices.
An worldwide group of researchers led by social scientist John Kittinger of Stanford University looked into the islands' history to see how distant back human impacts on the reefs could be traced.
The team saw at 17 archaeological sites around the islands to see what had been darted over the centuries into community middens, or dumps. They also reviewed ecological studies of the reefs, fisheries data and historical accounts of cultural practices.
When seafaring Polynesians first arrived on the chief islands nigh 1250, they fast took advantage of the islands' natural sailor kindness and it showed, Kittinger said. Fish bones in the middens progressively grew smaller a sign of overfishing, since the largest beings would have been harvested premier.
But along the 1400s, the natural populations had begun relying extra above raising pigs and dogs and less above fishing. They dug reservoirs near the sea in which to raise fish prefer than harvest the reefs.
Laws and traditions likewise arose to control fishing. Only community members could fish around the regional reef, and sharks thought to be animal fashions of forefathers were off limits. Only male centrals could dine turtle meat.
Communities even had land managers, called konohiki[/i], responsible because overseeing natural resources.
Over the next 4 centuries, fish, priest seals, sea turtles and additional mobile creatures recovered by 20%, and reef ecosystems as a whole recovered 10%, the study estimated.
"Primarily, humans are bad for the surroundings," Kittinger said. "All we do is muck entities up. But in this circumstance, we found that people do have the capacity to administer these ecosystems sustainably to use coral reefs yet not overuse them."
The thoughtful stewardship fell apart soon later European contact. Fishponds were forsook, sediment fraught reefs, and dynamite fishing was introduced. The Hawaiian island reefs have largely been in decline by far.
An exception is the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, or Leeward Islands, which have been reviving since the 1950s, largely because there is little human movement in those remote regions, Kittinger said.
The research, promulgated Monday in the journal PLoS One, shows namely sustainable practices go behind a long course and namely coral reefs may be better proficient to regenerate than formerly thought.
Coral reefs are some of the world's richest ecosystems, supporting a diverse array of marine life, including reef fish and mollusks. But they're extremely susceptible to modern-day menaces such as changing water temperatures, pollution and provocative fishing practices.
An worldwide group of researchers led by social scientist John Kittinger of Stanford University looked into the islands' history to see how distant back human impacts on the reefs could be traced.
The team saw at 17 archaeological sites around the islands to see what had been darted over the centuries into community middens, or dumps. They also reviewed ecological studies of the reefs, fisheries data and historical accounts of cultural practices.
When seafaring Polynesians first arrived on the chief islands nigh 1250, they fast took advantage of the islands' natural sailor kindness and it showed, Kittinger said. Fish bones in the middens progressively grew smaller a sign of overfishing, since the largest beings would have been harvested premier.
But along the 1400s, the natural populations had begun relying extra above raising pigs and dogs and less above fishing. They dug reservoirs near the sea in which to raise fish prefer than harvest the reefs.
Laws and traditions likewise arose to control fishing. Only community members could fish around the regional reef, and sharks thought to be animal fashions of forefathers were off limits. Only male centrals could dine turtle meat.
Communities even had land managers, called konohiki[/i], responsible because overseeing natural resources.
Over the next 4 centuries, fish, priest seals, sea turtles and additional mobile creatures recovered by 20%, and reef ecosystems as a whole recovered 10%, the study estimated.
"Primarily, humans are bad for the surroundings," Kittinger said. "All we do is muck entities up. But in this circumstance, we found that people do have the capacity to administer these ecosystems sustainably to use coral reefs yet not overuse them."
The thoughtful stewardship fell apart soon later European contact. Fishponds were forsook, sediment fraught reefs, and dynamite fishing was introduced. The Hawaiian island reefs have largely been in decline by far.
An exception is the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, or Leeward Islands, which have been reviving since the 1950s, largely because there is little human movement in those remote regions, Kittinger said.