Le suivi de l’état de santé des récifs coralliens de Polynésie française et leur récente évolution

Abstract

Monitoring of French Polynesia coral reefs and their recent development. — French Polynesia, consisting of 118 islands in the centre of the Pacific Ocean, has more than 15 000 km2 of reefs and lagoons managed by the local government. Tourism and pearl culture are the two main economic resources of the country. Polynesian coral reefs are extremely diverse and are among those for which we have thorough knowledge. The exploitation of local resources has been recorded for multiple decades and includes : coral materials, fishing, harvest and export of mother-of-pearl molluscs, pearl production, and ornamental fish. All over the country, many monitoring programmes have been launched to measure the health of reefs and the natural and anthropogenic perturbations that they suffer : hurricanes and seismic events, water quality, health of benthic and fish communities, pearl oyster pathology and radiobiology. These data, collected over the last few decades, allowed to define the relative importance of natural and anthropogenic degradation on reefs and lagoons, and to explain the present status of reefs at different spatial scales. Devastating hurricanes are rare (1903-1906, 1982-1983 and occasionally at other times), but they may annihilate outer slope coral communities on some islands. Bleaching events with considerable coral mortality at different geographical scales occurred mainly in 1991, 1994 and 2003. Outbreaks of Acanthaster destroyed numerous reefs (lagoons and outer slopes) from 1978-1982 and a new demographic wave began in 2006 at many Society islands. Eutrophication events only occurred occasionally and only in some lagoons. Whereas natural catastrophic events degrade the coral reef ecosystem across many islands, at the archipelago or even regional scale, anthropogenic degradation is limited to a few Society Islands, occurring rarely on atolls and not at all on those (one third) which are uninhabited. The main causes of reef degradation in some areas of Tahiti and Moorea include the embankment of fringing zones, coral mining, overfi shing, absence of urban sewage treatment and the development of leisure and tourism activities. Because of its large geographical extent, one may conclude that major reef degradation in French Polynesia is caused by catastrophic natural events. On the other hand, anthropogenic degradation is more localized. Unfortunately, the synergistic effects of these causes of degradation prevent reefs from recovering. Optimum coral cover on French Polynesian outer reef slopes is between 50-60 %. After a major destructive impact (hurricane, bleaching, Acanthaster) a reef is reduced to less than 10 % coral cover, however if no more major disturbance events occur a reef will recover in about 12 years. Most of the 15 000 km2 of reefs and lagoons in French Polynesia are in good health, and along with their neighbouring reefs in East and Central Pacifi c they are considered as the least degraded reefs worldwide and at a low risk of becoming degraded in the few next decades. However, we are more and more anxious about the future of reefs in the world particularly because present simulations predict that major impacts of climate change would include : elevation of sea surface temperatures, increase in the strength of hurricanes and acidification of seawater which will affect the formation of coral structures.