Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism launches study on sargassum impacts in the Caribbean
The Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) has launched a study to document the impacts of the recurring influxes of sargassum seaweed in the Caribbean Sea: Over the past 7 years, massive Sargassum influxes have been having adverse effects on national and regional economies in the Caribbean, with substantial loss of …
Beneath the Waves and shark conservation in The Bahamas
Marine biologist Melissa Cristina Márquez writes about shark conservation organisation Beneath the Waves and the research they are doing in The Bahamas. According to Dr. Austin Gallagher, the organisation’s Chief Scientist, “There are few places worldwide that are as important to sharks than the Bahamas.” In 2018, Beneath the Waves launched one …
The disappearance of insects from Puerto Rico’s rainforests is a “hyper-alarming” sign
The UK Guardian reports on the collapse of insect populations in Puerto Rico’s Luquillo rainforest. Plummeting insect populations, in Puerto Rico and other parts of the world, have been attributed to climate change, and could have effects that ripple through entire ecosystems and food webs: “We knew that something was …
Green turtles have made a comeback in the Cayman Islands due to reintroduction programmes
Science Daily reports on the success of a programme to reintroduce the green turtle (Chelonia mydas) to the Cayman Islands: During the eighties, overexploitation of the green turtle in the Cayman Islands caused the disappearance of nesting populations. To recover this endangered population, a program of reintroduction of the species …
Betty Petersen Conservation Fund awards grants to help conserve endangered birds in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Saint Lucia
BirdsCaribbean has announced the first three recipients of grants from the Betty Petersen Conservation Fund. The selected projects, which all focus on conserving endangered birds endemic to the Caribbean, are based in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Saint Lucia. In Haiti, Environmental Protection in the Caribbean (EPIC) will be continuing …
CANARI seeks stories of living with climate change in Montserrat
The Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) is looking for stories from Montserrat of how the fisheries sector been affected by climate change: The #Living with Climate Change contest is being held as part of the Darwin Plus funded project Climate change adaptation in the fisheries of Anguilla and Montserrat from …
Coral Vita: Coral farming in The Bahamas
Gator Halpern, UN Environment’s 2018 Young Champion of the Earth for Latin America and the Caribbean, is working with his company Coral Vita to build the world’s first commercial land-based coral farm, in The Bahamas. Coral Vita’s approach differs from most coral restoration projects in that it uses land-based coral …