Status of Coral Reefs of the World 2000

17. STATUS OF CORAL REEFS IN THE EASTERN
CARIBBEAN: THE OECS, TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO,
BARBADOS, THE NETHERLANDS ANTILLES AND THE
FRENCH CARIBBEAN
ALLAN H. SMITH, MARK ARCHIBALD, TRISH BAILEY, CLAUDE BOUCHON,
ANGELIQUE BRATHWAITE, RULETA COMACHO, SARAH GEORGE, HAROLD
GUISTE, MARK HASTINGS, PHILMORE JAMES, CHERYL JEFFREY-
APPLETON, KALLI DE MEYER, ANDRE MILLER, LEONARD NURSE,
CLIVE PETROVIC AND PAUL PHILLIP
ABSTRACT
The islands of the eastern Caribbean vary widely in their legislative and administrative
frameworks, and in their approaches to reef management and protection. However, many
of them are faced with a common set of threats and impacts: sedimentation of inshore
water from development of coastal areas; overfishing due to increasing demand from local
populations; and tourism. Some islands have established effective management institutions
and monitoring programmes that are either well supported or are capable of generating
their own revenues, while in others management is hampered by inadequate legislation or
lack of enforcement of existing legislation, and insufficient human and financial resources. In
recent years, the promotion of initiatives such as GCRMN, and the availability of training and
technical assistance has allowed a number of countries with limited resources to begin
implementing monitoring activities, based on the selection of methods suited to their
current capacity, such as the Reef Check protocol. In a region where many islands are faced
with the task of balancing the needs of coastal communities, the expansion of water-based
tourism, and the maintenance of a limited resource base, participatory approaches to planning
and management appear to offer an effective alternative to traditional centralised management.
INTRODUCTION
A Node of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network was established in early 2000 for the
islands of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Trinidad and Tobago, and
Barbados. It is coordinated by CANARI with support from UNEP-CAR/RCU (Caribbean
Regional Coordinating Unit). A node for the French Caribbean Islands has also been
established in Guadeloupe, coordinated by the Université Antilles-Guyane and the
Direction Regionale de l’Environnement (DIREN). Despite the economic importance of reefs
for all these islands, especially for tourism and fisheries, there is little quantitative
information on trends in the status of reef resources on which to base management
decisions in many of the states.
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