THE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists are back in the CNMI to conduct another coral reef and hydrographic survey.
At the Port of Saipan on Friday, NOAA scientists welcomed CNMI government officials to the NOAA ship Rainier so they could see for themselves the state-of-the-art technologies used in studying the ocean.
Capt. Hector Casanova, the commanding officer of Rainier, said they have been looking at “all the beautiful islands and we are excited to be part of this.”
Since 2000, NOAA scientists have been visiting the Marianas Archipelago to collect information on the condition of the coral reef and conduct hydrographic surveys. In each visit, NOAA gives the local community an opportunity to see the things that NOAA does and ask questions about the surveys that the agency conducts routinely every two to four years.
The last time they were here was in 2017.
Kaylyn McCoy, the chief scientist, in an interview said NOAA is conducting the same surveys “to see how the reef’s health is doing over time.”
The information they collect, she said, helps local agencies figure out how to best manage CNMI marine resources.
Also on board the NOAA ship Rainier is a group creating an updated hydrographic map.
McCoy said from the data they collected during their last survey in 2017, the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program came up with a 2018 status report which can be seen at https://www.coris.noaa.gov/monitoring/status_report/docs/CNMI_status_report_forweb.pdf
NOAA’s 2018 status report rated the CNMI’s coral reef condition as “Fair.”
According to the 2018 status report, from 2013 to 2017, “the coral reefs of the CNMI experienced multiple thermal stress events that greatly surpassed the…benchmark, resulting in unprecedented coral bleaching and mortality across the archipelago. Over this four-year period, most coral species were affected across all islands and reef zones, down to at least 20 meters depth. While global scale reductions in carbon emissions are necessary to mitigate ocean warming, it is also important that the CNMI continues to work to improve the resilience of coral reef communities by reducing local-scale stressors, such as land-based pollution and overfishing.”
Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez, Rep. Tina Sablan and other lawmakers join National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials aboard the NOAA ship, Rainier, which docked at the Port of Saipan on Friday.
