Coastal and Marine Ecosystems of the Wider Caribbean

Enrique Pugibet Bobea

Centro de Investigaciones de Biología Marina

CIBIMA-UASD

Punta Cana RD.

Julio 2013

Inter-American Network of Academies of Sciences (IANAS)

General Assembly

• When the planet was developing and all was changing, all-encompassing was sea. Today from photographs taken from space, we see the planet earth as a sphere, hazy and blue, very different from the other planets of the Solar System.

• The Earth is a water planet and we are citizens of a blue planet. Water, a vital element for life, was crucial to the development of all its forms and manifestations. Today the sea represents 71% of the planet's surface.

• The seas and oceans together, cover the planet, like a vast sheet of water. The vast ocean world is not uninhabited, under the surface there is a nearly infinite variety of life forms, a universe within a universe, a world blue and black, dense and mysterious, with its laws, its inhabitants and dramas, unlimited, indefinite and fluctuating. The vastness of the ocean, from its coasts to great depths, is home to flora and fauna so varied that when compared with land, these would be extremely poor. The ocean organisms are represented by thousands of plant and animal species, which in turn contain billions of individuals.

• Thousands of millions years of evolution of life in early seas produce more and more complex forms. From unicellular and primitive organisms emerged specialized cell. Sponges grew on the rocky bottom and colonies of corals reefs formed in warm, clear waters. The jellyfish swam and floated in the ocean and appeared worms and starfish.

• In a very early period, came and lived the first "amphibian-fish", over thousands of years, their gills were transformed into organs suited to take oxygen directly from the air. Thus was born the first lungs. In the process of millions of years, some mammals of terrestrial life, returned to the sea, giving rise to the sea lions and seals, whales, dolphins and porpoises.

• Some higher mammals, including man, in his blood have a composition similar to seawater, being in similar proportions as sodium, potassium and calcium. This salty blood is the heritage we have received from our marine ancestors, in which sea water circulating through their body. Both the body of the plant and animals, including man, contains a large amount of water. Every living organism contains water in its structure.

• Water comes from the sea. Life

comes from the sea.

• The animal life of the sea has a great diversity of forms,.

• In addition to the many forms of life found in waters, oceans and coastal ecosystems, are an integral part in almost every aspect of our lives.

• Throughout the history of mankind the seas have been present as the center and origin of all the mysterious and as a challenge to the thirst for knowledge and conquest

The Caribbean Sea is an integral part of this huge ocean system. This vast area consisting of a beautiful complex of ecosystems and natural resources is generally little known to the Caribbean inhabitants. The Caribbean is a tropical sea par excellence, from the ecological point of view this means it is a warm sea with coral reefs and mangroves as characteristic ecosystems, but also implies, in very general terms, that is a biologically unproductive sea and fragile against the destructive action of man

The Caribbean it’s a natural tropical region. To the north, the line of demarcation, which coincides with the Tropic of Cancer, intersecting the peninsula of Florida, marks the entry into a particular world that mythical Columbus described in words belonging to the language of paradise, loved and preserved by Bolivar in the soul as a vital reference and were we live as the only space possible to verify our cultural identity.

• Caribbean coasts are mostly sandy beaches interrupted by rocky points or mangroves. Communities inhabiting sandy beaches are characteristics and very similar anywhere in the world. The most important factor that determines the conditions of life on these beaches is the wave intensity, this affects the type of sand, on the slope of the beach and the mobility of the substrate to be thicker, earrings and more mobile, respectively, the higher the waves.

• The main ecosystems of the Caribbean are:

• • Coastal benthic ecosystems: those that develop related to the fund, on beaches and in shallow water. (Beaches and sandy bottoms. Beaches and rocky bottoms. Mangroves. Seagrass. Coral formations. Estuaries and coastal lagoons. • Pelagic ecosystems: those organized in the body of water, they have no contact or report directly to the fund, are basically of two types: pulsed ecosystems of high productivity and low-productivity ecosystems stable. • Deep benthic ecosystems: those located in the background, beyond the illuminated surface area of the sea.

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• The Greater Caribbean Basin comprises broadly, both the Gulf of Mexico and the inland sea that is covering the archipelago of the West Indies, Central America from Yucatan Peninsula and the northern part of South America. Baron Humboldt saw so it, and called it thousand mouth Mediterranean, with the set of islands and cays that emerge from Florida and as an arc extending westward, to fall into the northern coast of Venezuela, and along the coast of the continental United States, Mexico, Central America, Colombia and Venezuela.

• The Greater Antilles archipelago consists of Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Puerto Rico, and the Lesser Antilles, which have been calculated in the order of seven thousand islands, islets and cays, among which Guadalupe, Martinique, Barbados, Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba and Curacao, including the Bahamas, north of Cuba and west of Florida.

• Ours it is a sea, bind to the Atlantic Ocean, came first Spanish Portuguese, Dutch, English and French. Sciences such as anthropology and ethnology find in the Caribbean a plurality of cultures, languages and habits, without preventing that, based on these same scientific disciplines, we can say without recklessness that there is a Caribbean Culture

In the course of history the Greater Caribbean was a mysterious and limitless scenario for human activities. First collection of shells and shellfish on the beach, then fishing, later, navigation and trade routes for galleons and great discoveries, then scene of wars and battles. .

The discovery of America, his invention, or rather the meeting of two cultures, which is the beginning of the modern era, takes place in the Caribbean region. Unfortunately many of this nature, many of the resources in the Wider Caribbean are in crisis. Most coastal resources are being intensively exploited, and on the other hand a large portion of the population in the region lives in coastal communities, and there is a high dependence on coastal and marine resources as a source of work, food and power.

• More recently, we are experience a higher demand for goods and services for consumption by the tourism industry, one of the leading economies in many countries of the Wider Caribbean. This decrease in coastal resources has increased the dependence and pressure on marine resources, which are completely depleted or overexploited. Coastal and marine resources of the Caribbean Sea, not exploited, are severely degraded by human activity and require urgent attention for its restoration. Management and sustainable use of marine ecosystems will face a the same time problems of pollution and resource exploitation

Marine ecosystem resources in the Caribbean are generally shared

among countries of the region. Sadly, we have come to called it the

Tropical Atlantic Coast, due to an inclination to give back to the

Caribbean, effective result of an education to forget, that leave us, for

many years, lying alone on our beaches, disregarding the sea that

joined us in the history from the mythical origins of our meeting with the

European culture

To keep these threatened ecosystems require a holistic and international planning and management. This implies that both ecosystem management and recovery of stocks and ecosystems will require cooperation at various geopolitical levels. Apparently, it seems that we are learning to stammer the letters of the Caribbean and find ourselves the tunes of the indigenous sounds, the African rhythm and the European metric

Many national governments in the Caribbean have recognized that the current state of the Caribbean requires immediate attention and action to address these problems, the countries of the region have carried out a series of joint initiatives, and have even managed to get financial assistance . However, currently there is insufficient institutional, legal and policy or mechanisms for the management of shared marine resources in the region

• Additionally there is a lack of regional capacity and little information available and this is in many cases fragmented, particularly with regard to cross-border distribution, dispersions and migrations of organisms and the effects of changes in productivity and on the climate change. In cases where information is available, is not easily accessible to decision makers throughout the region. This lack of information represents a major obstacle to the sustainable management of shared

marine resources and ecosystems.

If we add the lack of effective mechanisms for the governance , the

region faces major challenges that must be addressed to manage transboundary marine coastal resources ecosystems. The Caribbean Sea has attracted many facets to life: marvelous source of inspiration, gala grandeur and majesty of nature, producing the most beautiful mythological stories, and from the sources of all cultures. Showcase unending beauties, source and possessor of an immense and dazzling varied flora and fauna, mysterious guardian of secrets and fantasies inspired feelings of superstitious fears, of great respect, deep appreciation for countless gifts and deep benefits to human life.

• There is a population in every area of the Wider Caribbean Marine Ecosystem and there is not a corner of water missing the presence of living beings.

• Although the potential natural resources that this sea offers to man is huge, it is not unlimited, therefore, it is necessary to know that we can only count on them indefinitely if resources are exploited in a rational and renewable manner and implementing reforms that will enable sustainable development and management of natural resources.

We recognize the Caribbean as our living space, our own field, our promised land. For this reason, like the ancient travelers, in this IANA scenario we should record our searches attempting to understand the relationship between man, nature, science and history, between culture, landscape and chronicles of this great region we call the Wider Caribbean Marine Ecosystem.

Many Thanks for Your Attention