Every winter Hawaii gets slammed by some of the biggest surf in the world. A lot of us would probably find the name jaws as familiar. Jaws or Pea’hi is located on Maui's north shore and regularly sees 40 to 70ft surf during the months of November through to February. This past year was especially large due to the “El Nino” which is when a big portion of the pacific ocean, generally near the equator and closer to south america, is unusually warm during the winter months. This rise in temperature can cause an array of environmental effects such as massive marine life die-off, larger than normal storms(which lead to giant surf) and coral bleaching.
Coral bleaching is when the symbiotic algae leave the corals due to a temperature change in the oceans. Bleaching slows coral growth, makes them susceptible to disease, and can lead to large-scale reef die-off. Coral reefs are some of the most diverse and valuable ecosystems on Earth. They support more species per unit area than any other marine environment, including about 4,000 species of fish, 800 species of hard corals and hundreds of other species. Scientists estimate that there may be another 1 to 8 million undiscovered species of organisms living in and around reefs (Reaka-Kudla, 1997). This biodiversity is considered key to finding new medicines for the 21st century. Many drugs are now being developed from coral reef animals and plants as possible cures for cancer, arthritis, human bacterial infections, viruses, and other diseases.
Storehouses of immense biological wealth, reefs also provide economic and environmental services to millions of people. Coral reefs may provide goods and services worth $375 billion each year. This is an amazing figure for an environment that covers less than 1 percent of the Earth’s surface.
To put it simply coral is VERY important. Now, touching back to the surfing side of things.. My friend and I were out traveling in Portugal during the first half of the winter season in a place called Nazare. It could be called the “Jaws of the Atlantic”. We spent about 2 months surfing and exploring the coast of Portugal before deciding that we should head back home to Maui to get some warm water shredding before the season was over. Before leaving we had many talks about how we could give back to the world in some way. We decided to form a foundation called Surfing Be Cause where we would raise funds funds for coral reef research through having people pledge money towards the biggest wave ridden during a winter season. We wound up raising about $2000 through a wave that was ridden by Torsten Durkan at Jaws that was right at about 50 ft.
Jaws Maui
Nazare Portugal
Im writing this post to try a similar thing. I believe Steemit to be this next big wave that is going to create a new paradigm in the world of social media and the internet for that matter.
All funds raised through the up-voting of this post will go to Dr. Ruth Gates who is the head of coral research at the University Of Hawaii at Manoa.
Steemit is so awesome with paying us as individuals for good content but I am also hopeful that this platform can be a big provider in raising funds for scientific research and other worldly matters such as our global climate change. I hope that you think so too.
PLEASE UPVOTE THIS POST FOR OUR CORAL REEFS!!
I hope that this can be a catalyst for more fundraising here on Steemit.
STEEMON STEEMERS!!!
| inspire to live and live to inspire |
-codylang
