Caribbean

Region

Countries included

Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Montserrat, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, US Virgin Islands, Venezuela.

Contact

Géraldine Conruyt
Deputy Director, SPAW RAC

geraldine.conruyt@developpement-durable.gouv.fr

Christophe Blazy
Marine Ecosystems and Protected Areas Project Officer, SPAW RAC
christophe.blazy@developpement-durable.gouv.fr

Regional Context

Importance of coral reefs

The Caribbean Region represents only 1% of Earth’s marine environment, but hosts 10% of the world’s coral reefs, including fringing reefs, which are most common; barrier reefs such as the Mesoamerican Reef, which is the largest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere; bank reefs; patch reefs; and a few atolls.

Governance

The GCRMN-Caribbean is led by a Steering Committee (SC) composed of fifteen regional experts, assisted by members-at-large. The members of the SC represent a variety of technical, scientific, and policy expertise. They include both institutional and individual representation.

The SC is co-chaired by the Regional Activity Center for the Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife Protocol (SPAW-RAC) under the Cartagena Convention and the UN Environment – Caribbean Environment Programme (UN Environment – CEP).

The members-at-large are individuals to whom the SC can turn to for technical advice and support for the implementation of specific actions, and who are kept informed of the activities and deliberations of the network. The members-at-large are regionally and gender balanced and include members of key regional organisations.

Since its revitalisation and strengthening in 2014, GCRMN-Caribbean has been making sustained efforts to ensure the collection of useful and accessible data that can effectively reveal the status and trends of the coral reefs in the region. The GCRMN-Caribbean network has more than 200 members who share experiences, information, and knowledge within an online platform.

Keys numbers

26,397

Total area of coral reefs (km2)

10.17%

Proportion of the world’s coral reefs

25 Countries with coral reefs

10 Marine Ecoregions of the World (MEOW) ⁽ⁱ⁾

(i) Marine Ecoregions of the World (MEOW) is a biogeographic classification of the world’s coasts and shelves (Spalding et al., 2007).

Key figures from the 2020 report

Hard coral cover

Algae cover

Activities

2014: promotion of the systematic approach to monitoring social science indicators in conjunction with biophysical monitoring
2014: development of the GCRMN-Caribbean Social and Economic Indicators Guidelines
2016: Finalisation of the GCRMN-Caribbean baseline scientific monitoring guidelines for biophysical monitoring (PDF can be accessed here)
2016: GCRMN-Caribbean Guidelines Capacity Building Workshop: Towards Comprehensive Coral Reef Monitoring,18-22 April 2016, UWI Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory, Jamaica (PDF can be accessed here)
2017: GCRMN-Caribbean Capacity Building for Coral Reef and Human Dimensions Monitoring within the Wider Caribbean Workshop, 10-14 October, 2017, Port Royal Marine Laboratory, Jamaica
2018: GCRMN-Caribbean Guidelines Capacity Building Workshop, 28 May-1 June, 2018, Saint Martin, French West Indies

Resources

Regional reports and guidelines from the Caribbean