350 million years ago, the oceans were the beating heart of existence. Plants had just begun to develop upon the earth's terrestrial regions, but the aquatic bodies of our planet had long ago emerged as the ecosystems of life. Even today, the oceans harbor over 250,000 species (Miller, 2002), 25% of all marine life (International, 2003). It was 350 million years ago that the first of the coral reefs began to develop (Chadwick, 1999) within the watery environment from which the earliest forms of life originated. About 150,000 years ago the first Homo sapiens emerged (Wikipedia, 2005), and compared to the geological timescale of the earth's existence, they rapidly developed into the greatest threat the coral reefs have ever faced.

Coral reefs, the most diverse of ecosystems, are also the most fragile (Thorne-Miller, 1999). The coral polyps, invertebrates related to the jellyfish, gather upon an arm of coral in numerous colonies and use the calcium carbonate...