Coral Killing Sunscreen
Posted by Meggs | Environmental Posts | Posted on November 17th, 2009
The broken English describes the impact of sunscreen
Greetings all,
Those of you following my posts and website www.skippermeggs.com will know that recently I had the pleasure of going on a cruise on the good ship Pacific Dawn. We visited four ports of call one of which was a small island called Lifou in New Caledonia where we were able to hire some snorkel equipment and explore their coral reefs.
On the main part of the island where most people went to snorkel you couldn’t help but notice that there were several signs asking people who snorkeled in the area to protect their coral reefs by not wearing sunscreen. Now I must admit I was a little sunburned myself already from swimming off Wala in Vanuatu a few days earlier and I planned to wear a t-shirt regardless of the signs posted. Selfishly I also thought that it would be much better for me to save myself from additional skin cancers than to worry about the potential impact on the local coral. Besides, I was quite taken aback with the idea that sunscreen was a coral killer and my first reaction was one of disbelief and much skepticism. With so much coral in Australia I thought I would have heard about any connection between dead coral and the use of sunscreen by swimmers and snorkelers.
So was this just an error of judgment from the Lifou locals or was there some substance in their warnings?
Well it seems as though I owe an apology to the people of Lifou and that you should seriously reconsider your use of sunscreen when it comes to swimming or snorkeling around coral reefs in any part of the world.
Apparently there are four common ingredients in most brands of sunscreen; paraben and UV filters cinnamate, benzophenone, and a camphor derivative and these elements can awaken viruses that lie dormant in an algae that commonly forms a symbiotic relationship amongst reef building corals. The algae is called zooxanthellae.
What happens is once the virus is triggered it replicates until the algae explodes thus transferring the virus across the coral reef. The ultimate impact is the bleaching of coral. Reef areas commonly frequented by swimmers and snorkelers are said to contain 15 times more of the virus than unexposed regions. With up to 6000 metric tons of sunscreen washing off swimmers each year this phenomena is alarming and impacting coral reefs worldwide.
So what can you do to protect yourself and the coral reefs?
Well I wouldn’t advocate going into the water unprotected. Try using other means to cover up with items of clothing such as T shirts and rash vests or a wetsuit. There is some talk of a sunblock being manufactured that doesn’t impact coral reefs but as far as I am aware this is not available yet.
Sea you later,
Skipper Meggs