Academic calls for protection amid coral bleaching

By Esme Yeh / Staff writer, with CNA Add TT as Preferred Source Taiwan should tighten regulations on coastal development to boost coral resilience, an academic said yesterday after a report showed that coral bleaching was increasing in the Kuroshio subregion, where Taiwan is located.Compared with the historical baseline period from 1980 to 2009, global hard coral coverage from 2020 to 204 was down about 9.5 percent, the “Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2025” report published yesterday by Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network showed.Global hard coral cover was estimated at about 25.8 percent in 2024, it showed. A coral reef on Siaoliouciou Island in Pingtung County is pictured in an undated photograph. Photo: Yang Yuan-ting, Taipei Times Plunges occurred in 1998, 2010, 2016 and from 2023