Anderson Cooper takes viewers on an underwater adventure to one of the world's most vibrant coral reefs, an anomaly at a time when many of the world's reefs are in danger -- or already dead.

60 Minutes cameras take you on an underwater adventure off the Cuban coast to one of the world's most pristine and vibrant coral reefs, known as the Gardens of the Queen. Anderson Cooper scuba dives with marine biologist David Guggenheim, dodging giant groupers and sharks, to explore this increasingly rare oasis. Scientists estimate that 25 percent of the world's reefs have died off and much of what's left is at risk.

The following is a script of "The Gardens of the Queen" which aired on Dec. 18, 2011. Anderson Cooper is the correspondent. Andy Court and Anya Bourg, producers.

Fabian Pina's office is little more than a shack built on posts in the water. He was starting to explain why he liked working here so much when we were interrupted by one of his neighbors.
Cooper: Wow, did you see that?
Pina: It's magnificent, yeah.
Cooper to camera operator: Did you guys get...you didn't get that? Nobody got that, did they? A huge bird swooped down...That was cool.
Fabian told us nine-foot crocodiles have paid him a visit as well.
Cooper: Really?
Pina: Yeah. Yeah.
Cooper: Just gonna readjust here and bring my leg up from dangling over the edge of the water.
Pina: Right there is a-- now is a great barracuda.
Cooper: Right there, yeah.
Pina: Right there. So this is the only place where you can see from your porch an animal like that. So it's wonderful.
It's wonderful and increasingly rare. Only after seeing a place like this can you start to fully appreciate the tragedy that's occurring elsewhere in the oceans.
Guggenheim: I went to Veracruz, Mexico, and I was told about the magnificence of the Veracruz Reefs. And when we got there, we saw that 95 percent of that reef had died and it had died quickly since the last time scientists were there. And I felt like I was going through a city, a magnificent civilization that had once stood there, but it was burned out. Nobody was there.
Scientists say the world's reefs are being harmed by a complex combination of factors; including pollution, agricultural runoff, coastal development, and overfishing. It turns out fish are essential to the health of a reef. Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other leading institutions are also very concerned about climate change because they believe rising ocean temperatures are triggering a process called "bleaching" in which the coral weakens, turns white and often dies.
Guggenheim: This is a disaster in slow motion. It's been happening for decades. And it's much more difficult to see it happening, let alone get alarmed about it happening.
Cooper: Scientists are always using the term crisis. Is it really that bad, what's happening under the water?
Guggenheim: Things are really that bad. We've already lost 25 percent of the world's coral reefs. And within 20 years it'll be another 25 percent.
Fabian Pina: This is big. This is nice. This can be like 10 - 15-year-old fish.
The reason this reef's doing so well, Fabian Pina believes, is that it's far from the mainland and well-protected.
In 1996, the government of Fidel Castro, a diver himself, made this area one of the largest marine preserves in the Caribbean. Almost all commercial fishing was banned. Since then, Fabian Pina's research shows the number of fish has increased dramatically.
Cooper: How much have fish populations grown?
Pina: Between 30 and 50 percent.
Cooper: Thirty and 50 percent?
Pina: Yeah, that's huge.
Fabian and David have noticed some bleaching here, but the coral tends to recover after a few months, leading them to wonder whether there's something about this reef that's making it more resistant to threats.

Guggenheim: Maybe it's because this ecosystem is being protected, it's got a leg up on other ecosystems around the world that are being heavily fished and heavily impacted by pollution. So that makes it more resilient. That's one of the theories that if we do what we can locally that these reefs have a better chance of being resilient to what's happening globally.
Cooper: So something here holds the key to figuring out how to save these other reefs and bring them back, in some cases.
Guggenheim: That's what I think.
Tourism here is tightly regulated. Only 500 fly fisherman and 1,000 divers are permitted to come each year, and the fishermen have to release their catch.
Andres Jimenez helps run the only place to stay out here - a handful of boats operated by a company called Avalon. It's a joint venture between the Cuban government and an Italian company, and it employs a lot of former fishermen and their families, giving them a stake in preserving the area and keeping commercial fishing boats out.
Cooper: If there was commercial fishing here now?
Jimenez: If there was commercial fishing here or not only that, if we weren't here protecting and taking care of all the area, it would be, poof, very fast. There's no way you can keep it safe.
Cooper: All these big fish--
Jimenez: It's too big. It's too big and they're--
Cooper: All these-- all the sharks, the grouper--
Jimenez: Yeah, sharks and grouper...
Cooper: All the big fish would all be gone.
Jimenez: They would take it in one day.
The fish aren't the only creatures here that enjoy protection. The crocodiles are free to hunt in the shallow water near the islands. Even these giant rodents called jutia are fearless. Elsewhere in cuba, they're made into stew. Here no one can hunt them.
Jimenez: They feel very safe here because we would never eat one of these things.
Andres wanted to show us what the reef looked like at night. So, with some trepidation, we plunged into the black water. The darkness was so complete we felt like we were swimming through space, but we found plenty of life on the sea floor.
[Cooper: You see that. That's one big crab.]
Cooper: At night you find all sorts of sea creatures that you would never see during the day like this crab right here which we interrupted in the middle of its dinner.
Jimenez: Anderson, I want to show you this big Moray eel here, here.
The eel didn't seem to want company... so we moved on.
We spent several nights and days exploring the reef. Swimming through tunnels of living coral 100 feet below the surface.
We were so close to sharks so often it was tempting to touch them.
It takes some time to adjust to the routine wonders of this place, but after a while, even we began to feel like residents of the reef.
Guggenheim: You know, in the conservation world, the work that I do, a lot of it is pretty negative. You know? Things have gotten pretty bad. So to come to a place like this and see it so alive, you know, I feel like a teenager again. I feel like there really is hope.


- -好长的广告啊啊啊

本来想翻译一下
太长了就放弃了
以后可能会陆续上翻译
这是很好的一个资源

好长啊，看得眼睛累。。。