[Coral-List] Healthy Caribbean reefs

Mark J A Vermeij vermeij at hawaii.edu
Tue Oct 25 12:11:23 EDT 2011


Dear All

There are some good reefs left on Curacao and while they are not easily accessible (windward shores), some are closer by and are visited by local dive operators. The reefs on the southeast side of the island are particularly noteworthy. This area called "Eastpoint" is an uninhabited area measuring approximately 60 km2 near the eastern tip of Curaçao. The area harbors various (integrated) ecosystem types such as salinas, inland bays, seagrassbeds, mangroves, several mountains, coral reefs etc which all remain in a untouched state. Along the entire area coral reefs are found, which due to the absence of development on land and their up  current location from any form of development, are among the few reefs in the Caribbean that actually grow. The southern shore of Eastpoint represents the Curaçao Underwater Park which was established in 1982 and covers 600 hectares. While the park is currently not actively managed, but the fact that Eastpoint is hardly ever visited by people, effectively makes it an area where nature is still found in a semi-pristine state on land and in the ocean. Many pictures in the following link overviewing some of the nicer reefs on Curacao were taken in this area:

Click on: http://www.researchstationcarmabi.org/research-in-curacao/coral-reefs
Scroll down to the video named "Examples of healthy reefs on Curacao"
(forgive the coral-centrism here, but there is also fish around in these areas...)

Tropical regards

Mark
__________________________________
Dr. M.J.A. Vermeij
Science Director
Carmabi Foundation
Piscaderabaai z/n
Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles
Phone: +5999-5103067
Email: m.vermeij at carmabi.org
Skype: markvermeij
Web:http://www.researchstationcarmabi.org/

NOTE THAT THIS HAWAII MAIL ADDRESS WILL NO LONGER WORK AFTER SEPTEMBER 2010, PLEASE USE M.VERMEIJ at CARMABI.ORG OR CARMABILOG at GMAIL.COM INSTEAD.

Department of Botany
University of Hawaii at Manoa
email: vermeij at hawaii.edu
http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/

Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics  IBED 
University of Amsterdam
Science Park 700
1098 XH Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Web: http://www.science.uva.nl/ibed/home.cfm




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