NOAA has placed new environmental restrictions on more than 58,000 acres of ocean bottom in the western Pacific to further protect endangered coral reefs whose habitats have been degraded by a warming climate and ocean acidification.
Critical habitat designations for five coral species will encompass parts of four marine national monuments and one marine sanctuary, according to NOAA. The areas include atolls off American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Marinara Islands, northwestern Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific Remote Islands Area.
“The final designations support the recovery of these reef-building coral by protecting the areas containing the habitat characteristics the corals need to reproduce, spread, settle, and mature,” NOAA said of the habitat designations, which come 11 years after the corals received Endangered Species Act protection.
The new critical habitat includes 18 areas known to support the five species: Acropora globiceps, A. retusa, A. speciosa, Fimbriaphyllia paradivisa and Isopora crateriformis.
