Our coral reefs are incredibly important. They consume carbon from the atmosphere and turn it into stone; provide habitat for myriads of fish and other sea creatures; and they protect the fragile coastal environments of the prescious islands.

The quote from Charles Darwin, in the video above, comes from his book on the structure and distribution of coral reefs, published in the late 1800s, in which he says, prophetically…

The relations, therefore, which determine the formation of reefs on any shore, by the vigorous growth of the efficient kinds of coral, must be very complex, and with our imperfect knowledge quite inexplicable. From these considerations, we may infer that changes in the condition of the sea, not obvious to our senses, might destroy all the coral-reefs in one area, and cause them to appear in another: thus, the Pacific or Indian ocean might become as barren of coral-reefs as the Atlantic now is, without our being able to assign any adequate cause for such a change.

His book can be read online here.

Episode 5 – ‘Mysteries of the Deep’, Coming Soon, 16 December. Send us your questions: twitter.com/wildiaries #LIHOU