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The Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem (CLME)
The Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem (CLME) is an enclosed sea rich in biodiversity, marine
environments, cultures and politically complex. It encompasses the Brazil & Guianas subregion, its
southern extension off Parnaibas, Brazil through the insular Caribbean to the east and the Central and
South America to the west. The CLME embraces two Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs): the Caribbean
Sea LME and the North Brazil Current LME. It is a marine geographical region in which the most
geopolitical components of complexity of any LME in the world occur, the highest number of maritime
boundaries of any LME in the world happen and the largest number of small islands developing states
(SIDS) exist in the world. The CLME depends on the sea.
Geographically is a transition zone between the tropics and the subtropics interacting seasonally with the
hurricanes in the summer and the northern cold fronts in the winter. The open ocean areas of the region
consist of mostly clear, nutrient-poor waters derived from the North Equatorial Current that flow through the
passages and form the Caribbean Current flow westward and northward into the Gulf of Mexico through the
Yucatán Channel forming the Loop Current and further on the Gulf Stream. Two of the world’s largest rivers
enter the sea in this region contributing with nutrients that promote high primary productivity and remain the
source of local fisheries. The continental shelves are wide and encompass diverse habitats that span from
architectonically complex coral reefs to seagrass beds and mangroves that harbour larval stages of species
economically important that aggregate in soft bottoms associated with rivers.
The fisheries in the CMLE provide jobs, income, food and tourism, these are mainly small-scale, there are
also large-scale commercial and recreational fisheries. The fisheries of greatest importance are those for
reef fishes, lobster, conch, shrimps, continental shelf demersal fishes, deep slope fishes, and coastal
pelagics. The offshore pelagics fisheries are also important and are exploited by countries from within the
region as well as by foreign nations. The deeper bathyal and abyssal zones are poorly explored and host
the deepest hydrothermal vent at ca. 5000 m depth.
The coastal sea water quality has been declining throughout the region mainly due to land-based sources
of pollution arising from high population density in coastal areas and associated discharges of municipal
and industrial waste as well as of agricultural pesticides and fertilizers. Other economic activities such as
shipping, tourism, and petroleum extraction are also concentrated on the coast. Noxious liquid substances
and garbage contribute to pollution.
Approximately 7 % of the world’s coral reefs are found in the CLME. The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef
system off Central America is the second largest in the world. About 30 % of Caribbean reefs are now
considered at extreme risk from anthropogenic pressures and global change. Hurricanes severely damage
coral reefs and affect the coastal zone development.
Almost 70% of all cruises take place in the North American region where the Caribbean Islands are in the
region the most popular destination. Shipping and navigation in the region relates in many occasions to
accidents where oil pollution has a major impact. The CLME is one of the LMEs in the world that faces
most of the challenges encountered due to the impact of a complex mixture of stakeholders from within and
outside the region. Within the CLME numerous organizations undertake assessments and contribute to
assessment work in the region.
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This region has been widely explored and it is probably one of the best studied in terms of its marine
environments and organisms. More than 30 marine research, education, and resource management
institutions and more than 200 individual members from around the region conduct research programmes
and projects, this effort is still small. A significant amount of marine data is collected within the Caribbean.
Each year, numerous assessments are carried out at the national, sub-regional, regional, and global levels.
The economical, social, linguistic, and cultural diversity in the region makes it difficult to transfer lessons
learned from one place to another within the region without considerable adaptation.
The three foremost priority issues within the CLME are unsustainable exploitation of fish and other living
resources, coastal habitat and community modification, and pollution. Climate change is now recognized as
a severe threat to the CLME with sea level rise to acidification of the ocean, and should be an integral part
of future assessments. There is a need to develop a standard suite of robust indicators for assessment of
the state of the marine environment (and human and natural driving forces), which can be applied at
national/regional levels and invest in capacity building to achieve better assessments. There are still
numerous gaps missing assessments for the deep sea and its baseline (the most extensive ecosystem in
the CLME), on potential resources within the marine bioprospecting and mining exploration activities.
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