UMGC PRESENTS

UMGC Presents: Coral Reef Sustainability –
Who Cares?

Uncover the hidden crisis of "Coral Reef Sustainability" with Gyongyi Plucer-Rosario and the urgency of preserving these underwater wonders for generations to come.

Coral reefs are among the most diverse, and certainly beautiful, ecosystems on earth. They are relatively rare, and in most locations, cover small coastal strips of underwater habitats. They are slowly—well, not so slowly—being degraded and dying from multiple assaults, most of which are anthropogenic/human made. We are living in a time when it is very possible that most coral reefs will be gone before our grandchildren are adults. Why this will, with a few glimmers of hope, be the basis of this talk.

About Gyongyi Plucer-Rosario: Gyongyi lives on Guam, and after graduating from Antioch College, immediately moved to Palau (east of the Philippines and west of Guam) as an unpaid volunteer to teach high school for two years. One snorkel later, she fell in love with the beauty of ocean reefs and returned to the University of Guam for a graduate degree in Marine Biology, focusing on what Guam is surrounded with: coral reefs. Her thesis project was on a very nasty encrusting sponge that kills corals.