What are the negative factors affecting the caribbean environment?

Question

What are the negative factors affecting the caribbean environment?

Answer 1

A big one they found is when people use Sun Screens and go swimming in the sea it helps to kill Coral reefs...

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Sunscreen: Good for Your Skin, Bad for Reefs?

By Jenny Williams

http://www.ethicaltraveler.org/news_stor...

As if coral didn't have enough to worry about - global warming, pollution and excess UV radiation now threaten 60 percent of the world's reef systems - there's a new menace on the block, and it fits in your pocket: sunscreen.

According to recent studies, some of the UV filtering ingredients in sunscreen have been proven to cause bleaching in the algae that lives on coral, thus killing the entire structure. The same harmful compounds (including 4-methylbenzylidene camphor, or 4-MBC, and octocrylene, or OC) can also get absorbed by fish and may accumulate over time.

Sejal Choksi, program director for environmental watchdog group Baykeeper, told the San Francisco Chronicle "[almost] 80 percent of our water in the U.S. shows trace amounts of chemicals from personal care products, which could be sunscreens, lotions, colognes or medications."

The UN World Trade Organization estimates that 78 million tourists - swimmers, snorkelers, divers and others - visit coral reefs each year, releasing between 4,000 to 6,000 tons of sunscreen into the water. Several marine reserves in Mexico - Xel-Ha and Xcaret - have banned the use of sunscreens that use oils and chemical ingredients.

The issue puts travelers in a difficult position: slathering on sunscreen wards off skin cancer but contributes to the destruction of critical environmental diversity. Natural sunscreens present a good alternative: the nonprofit Environmental Working Group maintains a list of health and beauty products that use only natural ingredients - no chemical additives. You can find them online at www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/wordsearch.php...

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Sunscreen's a bleach for aquatic life

Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, June 13, 2008

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...

Plopping down on the beach slathered from head to toe with sunscreen may help with the carcinoma, but the inevitable cooling dip in the ocean won't be good for the coral.

The creams that sunbathers use to ward off cancer-causing ultraviolet rays cause bleaching in coral reefs and seem to accumulate in fish and other aquatic life, according to recent studies.

The discovery creates a catch-22 for pale-skinned, sun-worshiping environmentalists who love to snorkel. But it is a particular problem for the environment because sunscreen is used almost everywhere on Earth, and it invariably ends up in the water.

[Which sunscreens are ocean-friendly?]

"Almost 80 percent of our water in the U.S. shows trace amounts of chemicals from personal care products, which could be sunscreens, lotions, colognes or medications," said Sejal Choksi, the program director for Baykeeper, an environmental watchdog group.

Sun care products, including lotions and lip balms, bring in an estimated $1 billion a year in the United States alone, and a lot of it is used in tropical vacation spots. As much as 6,000 tons of sunscreen ends up in the coral reefs where people swim and snorkel every year, according to estimates by environmental groups and the World Trade Organization.

A recent study authorized by the European Commission found that the chemical compounds that filter ultraviolet radiation in cream-based sunscreens caused bleaching in coral reefs.

The study, published in the U.S. journal Environmental Health Perspectives, showed that even small amounts of the chemicals made the algae on coral susceptible to viral infection. The killing, or bleaching, of the algae - which have a symbiotic relationship with the coral - is a death knell for the whole structure.

"Once the coral bleaches, it can't really survive," said Christian Daughton, chief of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's environmental chemistry branch at the National Exposure Research Laboratory in Las Vegas.

Some 60 percent of the world's reef systems are now being threatened by a combination of global warming, industrial pollution and excess UV radiation, which is why the sunscreen threat is being taken seriously by scientists.

"As with anything that happens in the environment, there is a confluence that joins together in weakening an ecosystem. It's rarely just one thing," Daughton said. "Sunscreen agents are one class of many different chemicals that aquatic life are exposed to."

But coral isn't the only area of concern. A team of Swiss agriculture department chemists recently discovered traces of commonly used ultraviolet filters found in sunscreens in the fish in mountain lakes and rivers.

All the tissue samples were taken from fish downstream from wastewater treatment plants, indicating that the chemicals may have been washed off in bathtubs and sinks and discharged from the treatment plants into the rivers.

Choksi said the same problem exists in San Francisco Bay, where numerous chemicals, including certain ingredients found in sunscreen, have been detected.

"Anything on your body that can be washed off and go down the drain can end up in the water," Choksi said. "The wastewater treatment plants, the places that we think are cleaning our water, aren't taking personal care products out of the water."

It is not yet known what effect the compounds in sunscreen have on fish or the food chain, but Daughton said they do bio-accumulate, meaning the chemicals are absorbed into the tissue of fish and accumulate over time.

Humans also absorb some of the chemicals, which Daughton said exist in high concentrations in the various sunscreen products available in stores, but no health effects have yet been proved.

Does this mean we should stop spreading lotion and just stay out of the sun, as many dermatologists now recommend?

A disintegrating ozone layer means skin cancer can occur even when a sunbather wears sunscreen. Then again, said Daughton, the human body needs some sun for the vitamin D it provides.

"It's a tough one with any personal care product because it's hard to tell someone that the life-saving drug they are taking is harmful to fish," Choksi said.

Instead of avoiding the excellent rays and gnarly surf, she said, people should demand to know more about the chemicals in sunscreen and other products so they can make informed decisions.

"The more we know about these chemicals, the more consumers can ask for less harmful products," Choksi said. "We can have wastewater treatments plants that are more advanced and take out these products if we decide that's what we want." [ - End ]

Answer 2

Missing tourists, killings, petty theft crimes, overcharging tourists, poor service and maintenance in resorts, high prices in restaurants and expensive airfares to name a few negatives.)