July 26, 2006 NASA CORAL REEF IMAGES KEY TO NEW GLOBAL SURVEY A team of international researchers compiled an updated inventory of all "marine protected areas" containing coral reefs and compared it with the most detailed and comprehensive satellite inventory of coral reefs. The global satellite mapping effort is called the Millennium Coral Reef Mapping Project and was funded by NASA. The Millennium Project collection of global images of coral reefs from the Landsat 7 spacecraft are publicly available from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Landsat 7 was designed by NASA and launched in 1999. The Landsat Program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the Department of the Interior's U.S. Geological Survey. The new study found that while the number of marine protected areas has been increasing, the level of effective worldwide protection of coral reefs is small. The study also found that most protected zones are too small to provide protection for fish species that routinely swim outside the boundaries. Only a handful are big enough to protect fish and marine life that naturally range outside their boundaries. The study was published in the June 23 issue of the journal Science. For more information and images on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/coral_assessment.html For more information about NASA's Millennium Coral Reef Mapping Project on the Web, visit: http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi/landsat.pl For more information about Landsat on the Web, visit: ## Contact: Steve Cole This text is derived from: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/coral_assessment.html Recommend this Article to a Friend Back to: News |
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