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The Caribbean – Keeping it Real

UN Environment-Caribbean Environment Programme

By IW:LEARN

August 29^th, 2019

For many, the Caribbean brings to mind turquoise seas, clean beaches, and coral reefs teeming with fish, turtles and other sea creatures. However, the real experience does not not live up to these expectations. In contrast, the seashore is covered with sargassum; the water is cloudy and the horizon covered in trash. And the coral reefs – once teeming with life – have in some areas bleached and houses a decreasing number of fish species.

More than 100 million people in the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR) live on, or near, the coast. The surrounding ocean is a complex ecosystem with the highest number of marine species in the Atlantic Ocean. Almost 10 percent of the world’s coral reefs are found in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. About 45 percent of the fish species and 25 percent of the coral species are found nowhere else in the world. With an area of 10,429 square kilometres of mangrove forest, the adjacent North Brazil Shelf has the highest mangrove coverage of any large marine ecosystem.

Shallow-water coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, lagoons, estuaries and beaches as well as coral banks and rocky outcrops in deep waters together make up the coral reef sub-ecosystem, the richest in biodiversity in the wider Caribbean Region. It supports three of the region’s major fisheries - reef fish, spiny lobster and conch - and is the foundation of the region’s tourism industry. In addition, coral reefs, mangroves and seagrass beds play an important part in coastal and shoreline protection under normal sea conditions as well as during hurricanes and tropical storms.

A 2016 study by the World Bank puts the economic value of the Caribbean Sea — including all its services and support to fishing, transport, trade, tourism, mining, waste disposal, energy, carbon sequestration and drug development — at US$407 billion per year.

Yet, this precious ecosystem is at the heart of competing economic and social demands as well as natural stresses and threats. Pollution from activities on land, and at sea, degrades and destroys it, thereby declining coastal and marine biodiversity. Many once-abundant species are now threatened or endangered. Hurricanes are becoming more frequent and more severe, resulting in great destruction, loss of lives and successively leaving the coastline and local communities increasingly vulnerable.

Since 1981, the United Nations Environment-Caribbean Environment Programme (UNEP-CEP), has worked towards better management and use of the Region’s coastal and marine resources. The Cartagena Convention, established in 1983, is the only legally binding agreement for the protection of the Caribbean Sea. The Convention has relentlessly worked to gain acceptance of three protocols to combat oil spills (Oil Spills Protocol), coastal and marine biodiversity (Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife Protocol - SPAW) and pollution (Land-Based Sources of Marine Pollution Protocol – LBS), among its 28 member states and 14 territories.

Based on a Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis of the WCR conducted between 2007 and 2011 by the United Nations Development Programme/Global Environment Facility Caribbean and North Brazil Shelf Large Marine Ecosystems (UNDP/GEF CLME) Project (2009-2014), the coral reef sub-ecosystem was prioritized for action as part of a regional strategy to address transboundary problems. These issues compromise the ability of the region’s living marine resources to support social and ecological well-being and resilience.

In the last two years, SPAW in collaboration with the five-year Caribbean and North Brazil Shelf Large Marine Ecosystems (CLME+) Project (2015-2020) has been developing, in consultation with several stakeholders:

Using the integrated approach, participating governments and stakeholders from academia, civil society, the private sector, and regional and global agencies, are working together to enhance management and conservation of the coral reef sub-ecosystem in support of sustainable development.

UNEP-CEP, as Secretariat of the SPAW Protocol, has also been working to revamp the Caribbean Marine Protected Areas Managers Network, to establish a regional wildlife enforcement network, and to assist the region in co-executing the Strategic Action Plan.

CEP is driving the process, building the alliances needed to ensure the integrity of Caribbean coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangroves – it is working to ‘keep it real’.