More of the Importance of Coral Reefs

Not only are do the coral reefs support the enormous biodiversity, they are also of immense value to humankind.

They are also important to:

Fishes
Corals reefs are vital to the world’s fisheries. They form the nurseries for about a quarter of the ocean’s fish, and provide shelter to the many fishes. If the coral reefs are extinct, the population of fishes will decrease drastically.

Tourists
Some tourists come to Singapore hoping to see beautiful coral reefs. If the coral reefs are bleached, it will lose its beautiful colours and disappoint the tourists. This will make the population of Singapore lesser and lesser.

Coastal protection
Coral reefs break the power of the waves during storms, hurricanes, typhoons, and even tsumanis. . By helping to prevent coastal erosion, flooding, and loss of property on the shore, the reefs save billions of dollars each year in terms of reduced insurance and reconstruction costs and reduced need to build costly coastal defences - not to mention the reduced human cost of destruction and displacement.

Source of medical advances
Doctors expect coral reef species to contribute to future medical advances. Already, coral reefs are being used in treatments for diseases like HIV and Cancer. If coral reefs become extinct, doctors would no be able to treat those diseases and the doctors expecting coral reefs will not be able to do any other studies of discovering medicine/treatments to other disesases which are not discovered yet. Hence, more people will die from lack of medicine.