On Monday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) came forward with a report according to which, the state of roughly half of the US coral reef ecosystems can be clasified under poor or fair. The continuous rise of ocean temperatures is the main reason for this.

Three years have passed since NOAA’s last report and since then, according to Timothy Keeney, NOAA's deputy assistant secretary for oceans and atmosphere, the Caribbean region has recorded a loss of at least fifty percent of its corals.

As coral reefs represent the habitat for one quarter of the existing marine species and for about forty percent of the fish caught by fishing boats, it is quite obvious something must be done in order to stop the reefs’ degradation.

In may, 44 New York City subway cars were relocated in the Atlantic Ocean's Maryland coastal area, in the attempt to create an artificial reef. This was not a first: since 2001, cars were also dumped in the waters of Delaware and New Jersey. Jeff Tinsman, Delaware's reef program coordinator, said that the 600-car reef has surprisingly made it possible for the local fish population to increase by 400 times; also, the number of angling trips jumped from 300 a year to 13,000. These are exellent results that need to be duplicated in all the places where the natural habitats have been destroyed by pollution.