The CARICOMP Network of Caribbean Marine Laboratories (1985–2007): History, Key Findings, and Lessons Learned

Cortés, Jorge; Oxenford, Hazel A.; Tussenbroek, Brigitta I. van; Jordán-Dahlgren, Eric; Cróquer, Aldo; Bastidas, Carolina; Ogden, John C.

doi:10.3389/fmars.2018.00519

Cited by 22 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…However, others have noted the increase in interest of science-policy bridging tools as one of the anticipated outcomes of the FSP2 phase. The need to bring widely dispersed expertise, data and information in the region together in ways that would focus these assets on priority policy and management issues has been documented (Merla, 2013;Cortés et al, 2019). Addressing this need in the WCR has been initiated with the development of status reports for the protocols relating to land-based sources of pollution and habitats under the Cartagena Convention.…”

Section: Political Constraintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges to Implementing Regional Ocean Governance in the Wider Caribbean Region

et al. 2021

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For over two decades, the countries, subregional and regional level intergovernmental organizations in the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR) have been engaged in an initiative to implement a regional governance approach for managing the shared living marine resources of the Caribbean Sea and adjacent regions. Given the inherent socio-economic and geopolitical complexity of the region, this approach has been recognized as essential to address the challenges associated with the interconnected nature of shared ecosystem goods and services upon which countries in the region depend. This paper uses a retrospective lens to shed light on the challenges confronting the region and its efforts to overcome them. It is based on the Large Marine Ecosystem Governance Framework developed specifically for the WCR in 2006 and characterized as “learning by doing.” Data were obtained for this study through desktop review of published literature documenting progress over the period 2001–2021 and insights requested from 15 key individual and institutional contributors involved in the initiative. While the lack of financial resources was an underpinning and cross-cutting issue, key constraints identified were categorized as institutional, capacity building, awareness raising, leadership, legal, political, social capital, or socio-cultural. They include national capacity to engage with regional level processes due to a variety of factors including funding, political, and institutional challenges of developing a regional coordination mechanism, engaging the broader ocean community to create the critical mass needed, the difficulty of mainstreaming ocean affairs into high level political and decision-making fora and the scarcity of local, national and regional technical and political champions. This paper advances understanding of the barriers to be overcome in highly complex socio-politically developing regions if regional ocean governance initiatives are to play the essential role identified in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, reaping the sustainable benefits of a blue economy.

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Section: Political Constraintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges to Implementing Regional Ocean Governance in the Wider Caribbean Region

et al. 2021

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“…Marine Biodiversity Observation Network Pole to Pole activities in the Americas region are being coordinated with initiatives such as the Caribbean Marine Atlas (CMA-2 Project) and the Southeast Pacific Data and Information Network in Support of Integrated Coastal Area Management (SPINCAM) program, both under the umbrella of the IOC-IODE and similar efforts. MBON incorporates historical time series data such as those collected by the CARIACO Ocean Time-Series (Muller-Karger et al, 2019) and the Caribbean Coastal Marine Productivity (CARICOMP) effort (Cortés et al, 2019). Such datasets allow interpretation of regional changes in terms of oceanographic regimes, e.g., the El Niño Southern Oscillation (Chavez et al, 2003).…”

Section: Mbon Pole To Pole Efforts In the Americasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Observational Needs and Resources for Marine Biodiversity

et al. 2019

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The diversity of life in the sea is critical to the health of ocean ecosystems that support living resources and therefore essential to the economic, nutritional, recreational, and health needs of billions of people. Yet there is evidence that the biodiversity of many marine habitats is being altered in response to a changing climate and human activity. Understanding this change, and forecasting where changes are likely to occur, requires monitoring of organism diversity, distribution, abundance, and health. It requires a minimum of measurements including productivity and ecosystem function, species composition, allelic diversity, and genetic expression. These observations need to be complemented with metrics of environmental change and socioeconomic drivers. However, existing global ocean observing infrastructure and programs often do not explicitly consider observations of marine biodiversity and associated processes. Much effort has focused on physical, chemical and some biogeochemical measurements.

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“…As seagrasses are faster growers than corals, the effects of eutrophication or other stressors may be apparent earlier, and at larger scales, than in the associated coral reefs. However, studies have yet to conclusively demonstrate this link (van Tussenbroek et al, 2014;Cortés et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seagrass Depth Distribution Mirrors Coastal Development in the Mexican Caribbean – An Automated Analysis of 800 Satellite Images

Hedley¹,

Velázquez-Ochoa

Enríquez

2021

Front. Mar. Sci.

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The seagrass Thalassia testudinum is the dominant habitat-builder in coastal reef lagoons of the Caribbean, and provides vital ecosystem services including coastal protection and carbon storage. We used a remote sensing methodology to map T. testudinum canopies over 400 km of coastline of the eastern Yucatán Peninsula, comparing the depth distribution of canopy density, in terms of leaf area index (LAI), to a previously established ecological model of depth and LAI for this species in oligotrophic conditions. The full archive of Sentinel-2 imagery from 2016 to 2020 was applied in an automated model inversion method to simultaneously estimate depth and LAI, covering ∼900 km2 of lagoon with approximately 800 images. Data redundancy allowed for statistical tests of change detection. Achieved accuracy was sufficient for the objectives: LAI estimates compared to field data had mean absolute error of 0.59, systematic error of 0.04 and r2 > 0.67 over a range of 0–5. Bathymetry compared to 46,000 ICESat-2 data points had a mean absolute error of 1 m, systematic error less than 0.5 m, and r2 > 0.88 over a range of 0–15 m. The estimated total area of seagrass canopy was consistent with previously published estimates of ∼580 km2, but dense canopies (LAI > 3), which are the primary contributors to below-ground carbon storage, comprise only ∼40 km2. Within the year-to-year variation there was no change in overall seagrass abundance 2017–2020, but localised statistically significant (p < 0.01) patches of canopy extension and retraction occurred. 2018 and 2019 were affected by beaching of pelagic Sargassum and dispersion as organic matter into the lagoon. The multi-year analysis enabled excluding this influence and provided an estimate of its extent along the coast. Finally, the distribution of LAI with depth was consistent with the ecological model and showed a gradient from north to south which mirrored a well-established gradient in anthropogenic pressure due to touristic development. Denser canopies were more abundant in developed areas, the expected growth response to nutrient enrichment. This increase in canopy density may be a useful early bio-indicator of environmental eutrophication, detectable by remote sensing before habitat deterioration is observed.

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The CARICOMP Network of Caribbean Marine Laboratories (1985–2007): History, Key Findings, and Lessons Learned

Cited by 22 publications

References 40 publications

Challenges to Implementing Regional Ocean Governance in the Wider Caribbean Region

Challenges to Implementing Regional Ocean Governance in the Wider Caribbean Region

Global Observational Needs and Resources for Marine Biodiversity

Seagrass Depth Distribution Mirrors Coastal Development in the Mexican Caribbean – An Automated Analysis of 800 Satellite Images

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