![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2209767487.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\t<\/p>\n
Acropora corals in Tatakoto, French Polynesia.Alexis Rosenfeld\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tGet your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.<\/a><\/p>\n This story was originally published by\u00a0Inside Climate News<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0is reproduced here as part of the\u00a0Climate Desk<\/a>\u00a0collaboration.<\/p>\n Ritidian Point, at the northern tip of Guam, is home to an ancient limestone forest with panoramic vistas of warm Pacific waters. Stand here in early spring and you might just be lucky enough to witness a breaching humpback whale as they migrate past. But listen and you\u2019ll be struck by the cacophony of the island\u2019s live-fire testing range.\u00a0<\/p>\n Widely referred to as the \u201ctip of the spear\u201d in the American arsenal, Guam\u2014which is smaller than New York City but home to a military community of nearly 23,000\u2014is a dichotomy of majestic nature and military might.\u00a0<\/p>\n The real powerhouse of the Pacific exists not on land but just below the water\u2019s surface in its biological resilience, which is now threatened by the Pentagon\u2019s quest for strategic deterrence. The weapons that miss their target on the testing range will soon find a different one, sinking down to the most diverse coral reef of any U.S. jurisdiction. A battle between the two is now emerging.<\/p>\n The U.S. government is accelerating coral reef collapse around Guam, alleges a team of international researchers in a letter released this month in\u00a0Science<\/a>. They warn administration pressures to prioritize national security\u2014through dredging projects, increased military infrastructure and live firing ranges\u2014will cause harm to endangered habitats.<\/p>\n In 2023, a marine heatwave in Florida resulted in a roughly\u00a098 percent mortality\u00a0rate of elkhorn and staghorn colonies.<\/p>\n Additionally, a fundamental misunderstanding of coral taxonomy in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is exacerbating the ecological harm to fisheries and reefs. Without intervention, these Pacific habitats now risk the same \u201cfunctional extinction\u201d experienced in Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States government seems to be softening conservation policies in ways that allow companies and the military to avoid regulation,\u201d said Colin Anthony, a doctoral fellow at the University of Tokyo and the paper\u2019s lead author.<\/p>\n For a time last summer, conservation seemed ascendant. In July, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)\u00a0rejected<\/a>\u00a0a Navy request to expand exempt military zones in northern Guam, citing conservation benefits outweighing national security concerns at Ritidian Point. On the same day,\u00a0NOAA finalized<\/a>\u00a0a rule designating critical habitat for five threatened coral species across 92 square miles of the Pacific, including in Guam and American Samoa.<\/p>\n However, the victories were short-lived. Following President Trump\u2019s issuance of\u00a0Executive Order 14154<\/a>\u2014\u201cUnleashing American Energy\u201d\u2014on his first day in office in January 2025, federal agencies were pressured to remove any \u201cundue burdens\u201d on energy production and security. In November 2025, NOAA followed up by proposing expanded authority to bypass critical habitat regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n The\u00a0provisions<\/a>\u00a0sought to remove language that required decision-making to be made \u201cwithout reference to possible economic or other impacts.\u201d Researchers have warned this prioritizes short-term economic interests over science and opens up vulnerable marine preserves to deep-sea mining, fishing and military expansion.<\/p>\n NOAA\u2019s\u00a0proposed changes<\/a>\u00a0also look to reclassify the \u201cenvironmental baseline,\u201d meaning the Navy could treat a degraded reef not as a problem to be addressed but as the fixed starting point. Baking in decades of ecological harm effectively insulates activity from ESA scrutiny and allows the Navy to cite \u201cnational security\u201d as a blanket justification for any new projects, even if they fall in endangered marine habitats.\u00a0<\/p>\n Additionally, owing to a \u201cconservation gap\u201d in ESA policy, reef-building corals are disappearing faster than scientists can identify them. Guidelines require clear categorization of species to determine their endangered status, however, corals are \u201cphenotypically plastic,\u201d meaning they change their features depending on light, water flow or depth.<\/p>\n Unlike land animals, it is difficult for researchers to neatly categorize species based on reproduction compatibility. Scientists must instead acquire genetic material and decide on a set of identifiable traits for a species that can sometimes span the entirety of the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of the corals in the Indo-Pacific, such as those in Guam, have not been taxonomically verified via DNA barcoding,\u201d said Laurie Raymundo, a biology professor and director of the University of Guam Marine Laboratory. Although DNA analysis is now the norm, it is costly and time-consuming, meaning endemic species could disappear before ever being documented.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cUnlike Florida, for the Pacific, it\u2019s not too late. We still have corals. They\u2019re recoverable, especially if appropriate policy is implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n Chief among them are Acropora corals, a foundation species that build the structural framework of many reefs. Though all arborescent Acropora corals\u2014those with tree-like branches\u2014from Guam and the wider Pacific are classified as \u201cEndangered\u201d on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, many remain unprotected under the ESA.<\/p>\n Guam\u00a0lost between 34 percent and 37 percent<\/a>\u00a0of its live coral between 2013 and 2017 due to repeated heatwaves, low tides and infectious diseases. While the island has escaped bleaching episodes since, future heatwaves could prove similarly fatal. \u201cEach year, we brace ourselves for the next one,\u201d said Raymundo, who highlighted how difficult a time it is to be a conservation biologist in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n Staghorn Acropora corals also tend to grow in massive thickets hundreds of meters in diameter. Often composed of a single genotype, these corals are unable to self-fertilize and therefore have very little chance of new settlements.\u00a0<\/p>\n The researchers\u2019 urgency stems from the recent collapse of similar corals in Florida. In 2023, a marine heatwave resulted in a roughly\u00a098 percent mortality<\/a>\u00a0rate of elkhorn and staghorn colonies. Now declared \u201cfunctionally extinct,\u201d these corals do not exist in sufficient numbers in the state\u2019s waters to provide effective coastal protection or thriving habitats for marine life.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem is, if you\u2019re the US military, anything you do can be cited as being for national security,\u201d said Anthony. \u201cEven if the appropriate process would just be an extra round of ecological surveys to make sure everything is done with the best intention to avoid unnecessary harm.\u201d<\/p>\n Indigenous Chamorro people on Guam\u2014who can trace their roots back over 3,000 years\u2014have also not forgotten the environmental harm caused by the military\u2019s past use of PCBs, PFAS and dieldrin.<\/p>\n \u201cI do see signs of anger and frustration among communities impacted by the need of a few to make money,\u201d said Raymundo, highlighting how small island nations contribute little to climate change but are at the forefront of the impacts. \u201cToo often we see that economic gain does not translate into food, health and education security for the majority of people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Some outer-lying islands in the region have already lost homes and can no longer grow crops due to salt water intrusion. Meanwhile, in January 2026, NOAA launched a survey to map over\u00a030,000 square miles<\/a>\u00a0of waters off American Samoa for critical mineral reserves. A move described as the federal agency \u201cshifting from science to prospecting,\u201d by\u00a0the New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n Researchers are calling for NOAA to reverse its ESA proposals and extend protections to the Acropora genus, regardless of specific species. They argue this would bypass taxonomic uncertainty, simplify surveys and ensure increased levels of protection.<\/p>\n They note that the ESA already allows for the inclusion of specific populations or sub-species\u2014like the Cook Inlet beluga whale or the southern resident killer whale\u2014and so call for the same logic to be applied before Guam\u2019s rich marine ecosystem goes the way of Florida\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cFlorida has become a glimpse into the future for the Pacific Ocean,\u201d said Anthony. \u201cUnlike Florida, for the Pacific, it\u2019s not too late. We still have corals. They\u2019re recoverable, especially if appropriate policy is implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Acropora corals in Tatakoto, French Polynesia.Alexis Rosenfeld\/Getty Images Get your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-498134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}