reef along with many other things. Our species may play a very negative role in many ecosystems, but one place where we can compensate for this is in writing. Many people write about our effect on the reef, as it is a very important factor, though one of even greater significance may need to be prioritized in our writing: starfish ethics.

     The effects from climate change do weigh heavily on the GBR, but what is contributing even more than climate change consequences is the crown-of-thorns starfish that primarily feed on coral. Over the past few decades these starfish have accounted for almost half of the coral death through the reef, nearly as much as storm damage from cyclones and much more than pollutants and water temperature issues. As one of the biggest contributors to coral death, this starfish overpopulation issue is massive. Luckily, humans have designed a solution to the starfish problem: starfish-killing robots. These robots swim amongst the coral and inject them with lethal doses of poison. This is great for the coral reefs and, over time, will contribute greatly to potential restoration of the reef. There is a big problem with this though, one of ethics. These starfish that are eating the coral are not parasites. Crown of Thorns Starfish naturally reside in coral reefs, they are their homes. What is occurring in the reef is not an infestation, instead the starfish are just going about their lives, doing what they normally do and eating their main source of food. The problem right now is that since climate change has been contributing to the death of reefs more than in the past, reefs are unable to recover from the starfish attacks like they were in the past because they also must deal with problems from poor water quality and cyclones. So, since these starfish belong in the coral reefs just as much as the coral does then are humans right to be interfering with the ecosystem and killing a natural factor of this food chain? What is happening here is that humans are putting first the economic benefits that would come from killing the starfish in order to promote the health of the coral rather than letting the ecosystem do its own thing. The reason that the starfish attacks have been so bad in the first place is climate change which is directly caused by humans themselves, so the question must be asked: Is it okay to be killing off a natural part of a habitat just because human effects on the environment have made it nearly impossible for a different environmental component to combat the normal predation? The debate of starfish ethics does not even end there. As we expand into other areas where multiple components of an ecosystem are fighting against each other and also dealing with human interference, we must continue to ask these questions. It is very unclear what we should prioritize, but the most important aspect of this is to recognize the problems. Ethical debates in the environment are abundant, so when writing about the environment be sure to recognize these areas of contention so that readers can see the environmental issues from all angles.