The Marine Resilience Initiative, Tobago (Pilot Project)
Tobago waters are rich in marine biodiversity, home to unique and interconnected ecosystems, such as the Buccoo coral reef - Bon Accord Lagoon Complex made up of seagrass and mangroves. Most of Tobago’s Caribbean coast is fringed by coral reefs extending to the northeast Tobago, UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Reserve. For over ten years, the Institute of Marine Affairs has been monitoring the health of coral reefs and seagrasses around Tobago. Unfortunately, we have observed several disturbance events have affected Tobago’s marine ecosystems resulting in significant mortality / dieback of critical coral reefs and seagrass beds. Coral reef monitoring conducted by IMA has...
Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) and Tobago’s Coral Reefs
By Dr. Anjani Ganase, Coral Reef EcologistInstitute of Marine Affairs History of the SCTLD Disease Between 2014 and 2017 along the Florida Reef Tract, the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) spread over a 100 kilometers of reefs. As the disease spread to other locations, it left in its wake, high coral mortality among some of the most common and crucial species found on Caribbean reefs. Today, the spread is much wider with latest survey reports showing outbreaks of the SCTLD disease throughout the Great Antilles, along the Mesoamerican Barrier reef and with observations of SCTLD as far south as St Lucia. The direction of the...
