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UNEP warns loss of coral reefs threatens lives
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is warning that coral reefs are being depleted as a result of global warming.
Foto: PNUMA
UNEP says carbon dioxide, absorbed by the oceans,causes acidification, a condition that kills coral reefs.
The head of UNEP's Green Economy Initiative, Pava Sukhdev, says the depletion of coral reefs is not only threatening the survival of one fourth of fish species that survive on coral reefs.
SUKHDEV: "It also means the lives, the food and the livelihoods of half a billion people across the planet. And those who are not familiar, that's about one twelfth of the whole of humanity. That's why choral reefs are important. And that's why their potential death is not merely an economic problem, not merely a social problem but it is a human problem of the greatest dimensions which is being ignored right now and I think needs to come up right up front in this International Year of Biodiversity."
Pava Sukhdev says biodiversity is the living fabric of the planet which includes the ecosystems, the variety and amount of species,and genetic diversity that can provide new medical cures for diseases.
Diane Bailey, United Nations
Duration: 1'08
