article_snippet.sent: The latest huge land mass is 1.5 square miles (four square kilometres) in size and was created by dumping sand on live coral reefs, possibly damaging local ecosystems.
article_snippet.sent: Richard Dodge of the Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center, said: 'the activities would appear to clearly both be greatly exceeding corals and coral reefs’ ability to cope and survive the excess sediments and turbidity.'
article_snippet.sent: Richard Dodge of the Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center said that as the reefs were being covered by cement and landfill, this constituted 'outright destruction' of the buried coral reefs and associated habitats. '
article_snippet.sent: Coral reefs are extremely globally and locally valuable both for the biodiversity and ecosystem Coral reefs create but also for the tremendous services Coral reefs provide in terms of food supply, cultural heritage, erosion prevention, recreation, tourism, and habitat for myriad other organisms,'
article_snippet.sent: Coral reefs worldwide are under extreme threat from changing climate and from local sources of land based pollution, over fishing, and coastal construction. '
article_snippet.sent: the activities would appear to represent an additional and severe threat to coral reef ecosystem health and sustainability.'
article_snippet.sent: Robert Nicholls, a Professor of Coastal Engineering at the University of Southampton, added: 'It is clearly destroying [coral reefs] at the local scale of the land claim and the environment. '
article_snippet.sent: In the bigger scheme of things it is harder to be precise as these are small areas in a large area of reef.'