Taiwan Focus 11 Aug 10;
Taipei, Aug 11 (CNA) Thermal discharge from a nuclear power plant in southern Taiwan is behind the rapid destruction of Kenting National Park's coral reef, a marine researcher said Wednesday, and he warned the reef's disappearance would jeopardize Taiwan's fishing industry and national security.
Allan Chen, a research fellow with Academia Sinica's Research Centre for Biodiversity, said the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant owned by state-run Taiwan Power Company has sped up the deterioration of corals by emitting thermal discharge that has driven local seawater temperatures 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius higher over the past 26 years.
Because of this and other anthropogenic disturbances, the number of coral types has fallen from 20-30 26 years ago to three today, Chen said.
Taiwan is rich in corals. Except for the sandy area of western Taiwan, various types of coral reefs can be found around the island and even off the outlying island of Penghu, where the water temperature has shot up by 1.09 degrees Celsius in recent years.
Dubbed as the rain forests of the ocean by scientists, coral reefs are considered the most important marine ecosystem in the world for the fishing industry, tourism, culture, medicinal purposes and coastline protection, Chen noted.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) , although corals cover less than one percent of the world's oceans, they serve as the homes and feeding areas of one-third of globally known marine species.
Chen's research shows that Taiwan's seawater temperature peaked between the 1970s and the 1980s, in line with global trends. In the last six decades, the average temperature of Taiwan's seawater has risen 0.79 degrees Celsius, slightly higher than the 0.5 degrees Celsius experienced by other tropical sea regions in the world.
Scientists have warned that if global warming continues at its current pace, the world's coral reefs will completely disintegrate by the end of the century in 2010.
In addition to industrial waste, overfishing, pollution, ocean acidification and typhoons all contribute to the destruction and bleaching of corals in Taiwan, Chen said.
He explained the current live coral coverage rate in Kenting is approximately 70 percent, roughly the same as in 1986, but he stressed that the rate could be a misleading indicator because coverage rate does not mean the live corals are fully functioning.
"It is like tearing down a multifunctional high-rise building like Taipei 101 and replacing the area with one-story houses. You lose most of the original diversity and functionality," he said.
Meanwhile, in northern Taiwan, a group of rare soft corals was recently discovered off the coast of Taipei County's Rueifang Township.
Wang Min-hsiang, a diving instructor who made the discovery, described the area as an underwater "crystal palace, " but he feared the ecosystem will be doomed if plans to build a coal-handling wharf near the site is allowed to proceed.
Taipower has proposed to build a 1,464-meter pier to handle shipments of the coal used by a nearby thermal power plant, according to local media reports.
Local residents have vehemently objected to the plan, but Taipower President Lee Han-shen said the concerns are unnecessary at the moment because the plan is still under review. (By Jenny W. Hsu) enditem/ls
