It’s been many years since I last went diving on a coral reef (Britain’s North Sea coast is strangely lacking in such oceanic wonders), but each time I have been fortunate enough to do so, it has been a life-affirming experience to rank alongside the finest. For many nearby communities, these beautiful marine habitats are important tourist revenue generators, but coral reefs are also vital to the ecosystem. They protect coastlines from wave action and tropical storms; provide homes for thousands of marine species; and generate nutrients for food chains.
Now they are under grave threat from several factors including development, environmental degradation and bleaching from rising sea temperatures. Roughly 75% of the world’s coral reefs currently face danger, with scientists predicting more than 90% could be gone by 2050.
That’s why the Guardian Weekly’s cover this week goes to Thailand and the Philippines where authorities are so concerned, that they are considering banning tourists from some of their coral reefs to allow them to recover. Can it work, or is it too little too late? The Guardian and Observer’s new south-east Asia correspondent, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, reports.
Elsewhere in the news pages we reflect on another horrific week in Syria, look ahead to crucial elections in Italy, investigate the mysterious abduction of a Hong Kong bookseller in China, and hear why US teachers are not keen on Donald Trump’s plan to arm them in the wake of the country’s latest school gun massacre.
The Weekly Review goes to Dubai, where plans are afoot to revive a chintzy mega-tourist resort built on artificial islands which are modelled on the Earth’s continents. What could possibly go wrong? And Shaun Walker, the Guardian’s outgoing Moscow correspondent, looks back on his time living in a Russia that has changed immeasurably in the 18 years since he first set foot in the country.
The Discovery pages consider China’s increasing advances in the science world, while Books considers important gains made in the field of immunology. Sport reflects on the most memorable moments from the 2018 Winter Olympics, and soaks up the characteristically understated mood of joy in Norway, which finished top of the medals table.
On the back page George Monbiot rounds things off with an impassioned rallying call for social communities as bringers of human wellbeing, drawing on the particular example of Frome in south-west England. Frome is not a town I’ve visited before but after reading George’s piece, it’s on my list of places to go. As some late winter snow falls outside our London offices, I somehow suspect I will make it there long before I get to visit my next coral reef.
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