Abstract

One of the findings of the recently released Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) report on the status and trends of Caribbean coral reefs was that coral reef monitoring in the wider Caribbean is 'scattered, disorganized, and largely ineffective. This key finding highlights the weaknesses and inefficiency of the current coral monitoring network, in part due to the lack of information dissemination and inconsistency in application of monitoring methods and approaches throughout the region. The GCRMN in the Caribbean currently suffers from reduced functionality, at three levels of action: data collection, information archiving and dissemination, and internal network communication. Those weaknesses are often coupled with challenges of securing adequate funding as a means to support systematic and sustainable coral reef monitoring. This has potentially contributed to losses of information and capacity building due to major gaps in the exchange of approaches and expertise within the region. To address the urgent need for a more effective coral reef monitoring in the wider Caribbean region, a workshop was convened in Curacao during August 6th - 8th 2014. The main goal of the workshop was to improve the regional cooperation for coral reef monitoring through the GCRMN. New coral reef monitoring minimum guidelines were proposed for ecological and socioeconomic data collection, hoping that these minimum requirements will facilitate long term monitoring of Caribbean coral reefs region-wide comparable data that can be used to enhance current management and conservation efforts, specially related to Marine Protected Area (MPA) Networks. Here, we present the proposed guidelines.

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