MIAMI - A task force charged with leading the nation's efforts to protect and manage coral reefs will hear from regional experts next week as it considers a reef-conservation strategy for the waters off Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

The group, formed in 1998 by presidential executive order, also will look at the potential impacts of Everglades restoration on the reefs around the Florida Keys when it meets Thursday and Friday in Miami.

The meeting comes as coral-reef health is waning in many areas, with a litany of problems from Key West to Tequesta.

Energy companies want to punch natural-gas pipelines across South Florida reef lines. Expansive blooms of algae, which some researchers say are created by pollutants flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, periodically threaten to smother reefs. Freighters and ships run aground on coral beds; spear fishers and anglers sometimes deplete fish species that inhabit them.

Federal wildlife officials are considering adding three types of Florida coral - elkhorn, staghorn and fused staghorn - to the list of threatened and endangered species, the first time corals are being considered for that protection.

"There's a whole suite of pressures" on reefs, said Ken Banks, manager of marine-resources programs for Broward County.

Some trends are more positive. The health of reef lines in the Keys has stabilized somewhat after steep declines caused by hurricane poundings and outbreaks of coral bleaching, said Cheva Heck, spokeswoman for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, created in 1990. Coral bleaching occurs when corals expel algae that give them food for growth.

South Atlantic and Caribbean reefs still are in serious condition, but there are improvements - including increases in fish populations and sizes - stemming from reef- and fish-management initiatives, said Roger Griffis, coordinator of the coral reef-conservation program for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a task-force member.

"There are signs of hope, there are signs of progress, but there are larger-scale signs that something still is not right," Griffis said.

Coral reefs are storehouses of biological diversity that protect more than 25 percent of all marine species and support a $100 million commercial fishing industry in the Florida Keys, according to The Nature Conservancy. The organization has investigated what factors make coral reefs more resilient to stresses such as storms, pollution and bleaching.

The task force includes 12 federal agencies, such as the Commerce and Interior departments and the governors of seven states and U.S. territories. It returns to South Florida six years after its inaugural meeting at Biscayne National Park.

The event starts Wednesday at the Intercontinental Hotel, with exhibits and a workshop that teaches divers and snorkelers how to reduce their impacts on reefs. The meeting formally opens Thursday morning with remarks from James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, followed by a presentation from the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force on an $8.4 billion plan to improve and clean water flows through the Everglades.

Friday's agenda includes a keynote talk by Jon Day of the Greater Barrier Marine Park Authority on how to build reefs that are better able to rebound from diseases, storms, climate change and other stresses, a key theme of the meeting. Next will come progress reports on local reef protection plans sparked by the task force.

Marine officials working as the Southeast Florida Action Strategy Team have hammered out one such plan for South Florida. The plan is being coordinated by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The event concludes Saturday with two workshops, one on reef science and management and the other on reef-damage assessment and restoration.