徐闻县西部珊瑚礁的分布与保护

雷州半岛属热带北缘季风气候,沿岸海洋属热带海洋,生长浅水造礁石珊瑚,但只有雷州半岛西南部沿岸形成珊瑚礁,是中国大陆(不含岛屿)沿岸唯一的礁区。主要为岸礁,有个别为斑礁。徐闻县西部沿岸有16段珊瑚礁,初步统计总长约37.5 km,面积30.1 km2。由于人类不当的开发导致珊瑚不断死亡,珊瑚礁生态退化。现已成立的珊瑚礁自然保护区,应予加强管理。海水养殖珍珠与珊瑚礁自然保护事业是可以协调发展的。

The Distribution and Protection of the Coral Reefs in the West of Xuwen County

Leizhou Peninsula lies in the north marginal part of tropic monsoon area in East Asia.There are shallow water coral lives in the sea along the coast of the peninsula,but coral reefs are only distributed along its southwest coast.Those reefs are the only ones along the coast of mainland China except islands.Fringing reef is the dominant type,and patch reef also can be seen.There are 16 parts of coral reefs in the sea west of Xuwen County,with a total length of about 37.5 km and a total area of 30.1 km~(2).In recent years the coral is keeping died and the reefs are decreasing because of the unreasonable exploitation,such as picking the live coral for saling,digging reef block for building,collecting shellfishes in the coral reef,electro-cutting fish and blasting fish,which kill polyps simultaneously.And also in the past 10~20 years,the local people are involved into piling and hanging nylon string bag to hold the cultured Pinctada martensi in the shallow water of about 2 meters in depth where the coral grows.At the same time,the excreta from the pearl do harm to polyps.During the period of 2000~2004,the coverage rate of coral on the fore-reef slope decreased from 30%~40% to 10%.Now a coral reef conserve has been set up and stricter management will be exercised.The local government has mobilized the culturists to move the culturing from the conserve to deeper water area and to use buoy array to hang string bag.Since then the coral has started to recover and grow new parts,and the cultured area and yield of pearl also keep roughly stable.It is shown that the pearl culture and the coral reef protection can develop harmoniously.