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Spring
2017
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Volume 6| Issue 2
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In this issue
-News Highlight-
-Feature Stories-
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Cartagena Convention Conference of the Parties gather in Cayenne, French Guiana
Cartagena Convention Contracting Parties meeting participants gather for a photo.
During the week of March 13-17
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, NOAA's Office of International Affairs and NMFS's Office of Protected Resources represented NOAA on the US Delegation, alongside the Department of State and EPA, to the meeting of the Contracting Parties (COP) of the Cartagena Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment in the Wider Caribbean Region. The Parties to the Convention's protocols concerning
Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW), Land-Based Sources of Pollution and Activities (LBS) and Co-operation in Combating Oil Spills, also held meetings during the week.
NOAA's proposal to list the Nassau Grouper to Annex III of the SPAW Protocol was approved and adopted by the Parties. Other species of interest to NOAA approved for listing are: the smalltooth sawfish to Annex II and the oceanic whitetip shark, manta rays, hammerhead sharks and whale sharks to Annex III. An Annex II listing requires Parties to prohibit the taking, possession or killing, or commercial trade of the species listed. The listing of species under Annex III requires Parties adopt and implement management plans to ensure the protection and management of the species. The Parties also approved the submission by Cuba to list the National Park Cayos de San Felipe as a protected area. Under the LBS Protocol, the US will continue to chair the Monitoring and Assessment Working Group which serves as the technical advisory body to the Secretariat through the development of the State of the Convention Area Report (SOCAR). The SOCAR will provide a baseline understanding of marine pollution in the wider Caribbean. Costa Rica and Jamaica recently ratified the LBS Protocol.
The Government of Curaçao offered to host the next Conference of Parties in 2019.
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Feature Stories
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ADAPTA - a climate adaptation demonstration project for farmers in the US Caribbean
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Farmers participating in ADAPTA training. |
To build climate resilience in the Caribbean agricultural sector, the
USDA Caribbean Climate Hub
created
ADAPTA
, a project that communicates best adaptive practices and provides risk management training to farmers and agricultural advisers. Climate risks in the Caribbean include more extreme temperatures, heat stress, increases in invasive pests, droughts, and floods.
ADAPTA started as an outreach project for farmers that include
educational videos
and
factsheets
that promote sustainable land management practices like no tillage, green manure, mulching, use of cover crops and crop rotation, soil and water conservation and agroforestry. Some outcomes of the project include increasing climate literacy among the agricultural sector and demand for trainings on the practices highlighted in the videos. As a result, the Caribbean Hub will provide a series of workshops in May 2017, to provide information and on-farm demonstrations for farmers, forest landowners and land managers to help them address risks associated with climate change. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Regional Hubs for Risk Adaptation and Mitigation to Climate Change (The Climate Hubs) were established to ensure that, in light of increasing weather variability and a changing climate, farmers, ranchers and forest landowners and managers have access to the best information on management practices, decision tools, and short-term and seasonal climate/weather data and trends in order to increase resilience and reduce risk in their activities.
Discover the ADAPTA videos!
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Restoration of Sea Urchin Species
Diadema antillarum
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Photograph of a Diadema antillarum settler collected in La Parguera, Puerto Rico.
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On many contemporary coral reefs, the abundance of benthic algae has increased, to the extent that they have become dominant at many locations in the Caribbean. Algal dominance can signify a loss in reef resiliency, as fleshy macroalgae limit coral settlement, affect sediment deposition by trapping sediments, and alter chemical properties close to the benthos. Herbivores, such as fishes (parrotfish and surgeonfish) and sea urchins, may control algal abundance, however, the occurrence of these herbivores is now low on most Caribbean reefs. Regulating fisheries and restocking individuals are two ways to increase the abundance of herbivorous fishes and sea urchins. In the Caribbean, the restocking of D. antillarum has been unsuccessful, as most of the restocked individuals went missing or were eaten days to weeks after being introduced. These restocking efforts have been limited to translocating adults or introducing juveniles, which were lab-reared from larvae. In this project, D. antillarum settlers were collected at a shelf-edge reef in La Parguera, Puerto Rico (Fig. 1), reared to adults in a wet lab and were transferred to the back reef of Media Luna. Only adult D. antillarum were present at this reef before the restocking. The dominant benthic substrate at Media Luna is a mixture of turf algae, growing intermixed with fleshy macroaglae, and articulated calcareous algae (Fig. 2). Restocking of D. antillarum was successful as 79% of young adults were recorded four months after the first restocking in June, and 75% were recorded during July. Changes in benthic composition were evident in the relocation area one week after the restocking (Fig. 2). Ninety-five percent of the benthic substrate within the study area was effectively grazed of all algae, two months after each restocking (Fig. 3). D. antillarum even removed the encrusting tunicate (Fig. 3) and sustained removal of algae five months after restocking. This study is important for coral restoration as it bypasses difficult rearing of larvae and natural predation of recruits is bypassed by restocking with adults. This restoration method is effective in Puerto Rico and is easily transferable to other parts of the Caribbean and the Pacific.
To learn more about sea urchin restoration contact Stacey Williams: [email protected]
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Ecosystem Based Fishery Management
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Coral photo taken by Cynthia Meyer. |
The marine ecosystem in the U.S. Caribbean intricately intertwines many species from corals to
seagrasses and from conchs to reef fish. Challenges of sustaining a healthy ecosystem in this
diverse community may require consideration of ecosystem-based fishery management (EBFM)
strategies. To investigate the potential benefits of EBFM, NOAA Fisheries is beginning the
development of a Fishery Ecosystem Plan (FEP) in collaboration with the Caribbean Fishery
Management Council (Caribbean Council). The FEP would be a guidance document to aid in
the development of Fishery Management Plans (FMPs) that consider ecosystem relationships
between species and their habitats.
In February 2017, staff from NOAA Fisheries, the Caribbean Council, and the Lenfest Ocean
Program met in St. Petersburg, Florida, to envision developing the U.S. Caribbean FEP. The
discussion covered a wide range of viewpoints including the concept and aim of the FEPs, data
challenges, roadmaps for FEP development, ecosystem modeling and additional logistics. The
first step in the process would be the development of a conceptual model of the U.S. Caribbean
ecosystem, for which stakeholder engagement will be essential.
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Benthic Habitats on the South Eastern Puerto Rican Shelf
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The South Eastern Puerto Rican shelf stretches from the eastern edge of Vieques, PR to the eastern edge of St. John, USVI. NOAA scientists at the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) mapped this area over the last 10 years using the NOAA ship
Nancy Foster
with the support of Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, Office of Coast Survey, and many other Territorial partners. This collaborative effort has collected hundreds of underwater videos and generated high-resolution depth and topographic maps of the seafloor. This information was recently leveraged to characterize the seafloor and create high-resolution (11x11m) benthic habitat maps for the South Eastern Puerto Rican Shelf. NCCOS scientists returned to the U.S. Caribbean in February 2017 to collect additional data (Figure 1), which will be used to evaluate the accuracy of these habitat map products. While there, NCCOS also met with our local partners at U.S. Geological Survey, University of the Virgin Islands, USVI Department of Planning and Natural Resources, and National Park Service (St. John) to review and get their feedback on these map products (Figure 2). Once finalized, these new habitat map products will help inform the monitoring and management of important coral reef habitats, fish spawning aggregation sites, and marine protected areas in the USVI and broader jurisdiction.
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Benthic habitat map of the USVI Insular.
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Welcome to Ashely Ruffo, New NMFS Liasion in St. Croix
Please welcome Ashley Ruffo, our new NMFS Fisheries Liaison in the St Croix office. Ashley will be working on a variety of coral reef conservation initiatives in concert with NOAA and territorial partners, including (but not limited to) providing assistance to NOAA's Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring Program and the U.S. Caribbean Acoustic Network. In addition, Ashley will assist in furthering our understanding of the ecological consequences of the exotic invasive seagrass species, Halophila stipulacea. Ashley will also help the NMFS Southeast Region implement the Essential Fish Habitat provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act in the U.S. Caribbean.
Ashley has been living in the USVI for 7 years, including 6 years on St Croix. She earned a Master's degree in Marine and Environmental Science from University of Virgin Islands in 2016 and Bachelor's degree in Marine Biology from University of North Carolina - Wilmington. Since living in the USVI, she has worked as research technician and research diver for St. Thomas Fisheries Association, University of the Virgin Islands, USVI Department of Planning and Natural Resources, National Park Service (Buck Island Reef National Monument), U.S. Geological Survey, and most recently for a private statistics firm.
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Bringing Partners Together in Marine Education
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EcoClub educational handout.
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As reported in the 2016 Summer issue of
NOAA in the Caribbean
, 25 Caribbean marine protected area (MPA) managers met in Cancun last March to focus on outreach and education as part of the joint NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program and the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute partnership. As a follow-up to this meeting six Caribbean MPA education officers met in November 2016 to work on the design of their site-specific MPA education programs. Great strides were made through productive conversations and guidance from National Parks Foundation of Bonaire (abbreviated as STINAPA in Dutch) and the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance in focusing local MPA education efforts to support management needs. The importance of partnering with existing youth programs, as learned from the success of the STINAPA Bonaire Junior Rangers was a major topic of discussion and something the Department of the Environment and Coastal Resources in the Turks & Caicos Islands wanted to focus on. As a result of this meeting a newly designed 'EcoClub' education program was created which utilizes outreach materials and stories applicable to the local Youth Centre. This program includes a creative folding poster developed by Deviate Design which helps explain the marine education program to other youth professionals. What is the result of this new program? The Department of the Environment and Coastal Resources and the local Youth Centre will launch the first year of the EcoClub MPA education program in the Turks & Caicos Islands in September 2017. As a result of this program and the meeting in November with other regional education officers, STINAPA Bonaire is developing a Junior Ranger program handbook which will enable further sharing about the program with MPAs internationally.
For more information please contact Emma Doyle at the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute [email protected].
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Upcoming Events
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U.S Coral Reef Task Force
The 38th meeting of the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force will be held on August 7-12, 2017, at the Marriott Harbor Beach Hotel in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
The theme of the meeting will be "Healthy Reefs for a Healthy Economy."
More information can be found here
Caribbean Regional Response Team
The Caribbean Regional Response Team meetings will be held in St Croix, USVI the week of Aug 7. We will also be holding a Sector SAN Juan area committee meeting that week and a joint regional exercise.
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Announcements
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NOAA Fisheries Announcements
New 'sister sanctuary' agreement protects whales from New England to the Caribbean
Stellwagen Bank sanctuary joins with the Caribbean Netherlands' Yarari sanctuary in humpback whale research, monitoring and conservation.
Fisheries Innovation Fund 2017 Request for Proposals
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) will award
grants
to foster innovation and support effective participation of fishermen and fishing communities in the implementation of sustainable fisheries in the U.S. We anticipate awarding approximately $650,000 through this solicitation.
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NOAA in the Caribbean Newsletter
Please e-mail us at [email protected] to subscribe or unsubscribe to the newsletter or to submit any questions, comments, story ideas, artwork or photographs.
NOAA in the Caribbean Newsletter is produced by the NOAA in the Caribbean Steering Committee, including support from NOAA's Office of International Affairs,
Southeast And Caribbean Regional Collaboration Team, Office for Coastal Management, National Marine Fisheries Service SE Regional Office, Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, and National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science.
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