CARIDUEAN SEA EcosYSTEf..l AssESSMENT The Caribbean, home to more thtm 116 million people,' is divided among 22 independent states, of which 9 arc continental countries of South and Central America, and the remainder islands and archipelagos. In addition, lour colonial authorities---the United States (U.S.), the United Kingdom (U.K.), France, and the Netherlands··· still exercise political control over 17 island territories in the region. The complex political structure, produced by the historic struggles lor control of the resources of the Caribbean, and rc!leeting a wide cultural diversity arising from that history, has left the region with a series of overlapping regional authorities exercising varying degrees of policy co-ordination over parts of the Sea. This creates a significant problem in the exercise of a holistic approach to the management of the Caribbean Sea ecosystem. What unites the people inhabiting this region is a common dependence on two particular products or lhe marine ecosystem, known in the tcnninology of the Mi\ as ecosystem services. Because of the dominant role of fishing and tourism in the Caribbean economy, this assessment concentrates mainly on the implications lor these two services of current trends and future options. Why Fishing and Tourism? i\ few !acts and ligures help to justify the choice of these two services. New data provided for this assessment conlinn that relative to its size, the island population of the Caribbean is more dependent on income !rom toutism than that of any other part of the world. In 2004, more than 2.4 million people were employed either directly or indirectly in travel and tourism, accounting lor 15.5'Yo of total employment, a proportion nearly twice as high as the global average. The sector contributed U.S. $28.4 billion to the Gross Domestic Product (GOP), 13% of the total, and U.S. S 19 billion or 16% of exported services and merchandise. Over onc-!ifth (21.7%) of all capital investment was linked to tourism, well over twice the global average. Twenty-live million tourists choose to holiday in the Caribbean each year, in large part in pursuit of a dream of sensuous relaxation shaped by its natural !caturcs---· palm-fringed beaches, blue-green lagoons with crystalclear water, opportunities to sec multi-coloured fish swimming amongst coral reels. Dependence on tourism, therefore, also implies dependence on the capacity of 1De lined us Ll10sc lh•ing within I00 km of the Caribbc;:m coust. XV nature to continue providing the conditions which make the Caribbean such a popular dcstination. In cases such as the diving industry, this connection is so close that degradation of ecosystem quality can be measured directly in lost income. Fishing is also a significant provider of jobs and income in the Caribbean. It is estimated that more than 200,000 people in the region arc directly employed, either lulltime or part-time, as fishers. In addition, some I00,000 work in processing and marketing of fish, with additional job opportunities in net-making, bout-building, and other supporting industries. Assuming each person employed has live dependents, more than 1.5 million people in the Caribbean rely lor their livelihood on commercial fishing. The activity also brings in approximately U.S. S 1.2 billion annually in export camings, with the U.S. the principal destination. However, the true importance of fishing is not lully reflected in these ligures. In a region where most of the population has access to the Sea, fish provide a vital resource for poor communities in ways which do not always appear on the national accounts. It is estimated, lor example, that lish products account for on average 7% of the protein consumed by people in the Caribbean region. Anything which damages the productivity of the marine food chain is therefore a signilicant threat both to the health and to the wealth of these societies. State of the Ecosystem - Signs of Trouble Damaged il!fi-lrs/ruc/llre The functioning of the Caribbean Sea ecosystem and the delivery of its services are heavily reliant on the condition of lour interdependent coastal lonnations: beaches, coral reels, mangroves, and beds. The white-sand beaches beloved of tourists arc lonncd partly !rom the fragments of coral skeleton: the coral reels themselves arc both a rich source of !ood and a magnet for visitors; scagrass beds act as nurseries for many species of !ish and shellfish; and mangroves help to provide nutrients lor a range or marine life, shield coastal communities from the full Ioree of wind and waves, purify wastes !rom lundbased sources that enter the coastal zone, and attract ccotoulists to their vibrant wildlile. Each or these lonnations is showing signs of significant damage as n result of human activities, with serious implications lor the future capacity of the ecosystem to provide income from tourism and fishing. The best documented example is lor corals: recent studies suggest that some 80% of living coral in the reefs of the Caribbean - 17-