Most academic and research institutions on the Caribbean islands involved in marine environmental sciences and natural resource management, concentrate their efforts on marine biology and pollution. Examples are the Centre for Resource Management and Env ironmental Studies (CRMES) and the Marine Resources Management Programme (MAREMP) of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Barbados; the Centre for Marine Sciences (CMS) and the Centre for Environment and Development (ED) at UWI, Jamaica the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) and the Consortium of Caribbean Universities for Natural Resource Management (CCUNRM) at the University of the Virgin Islands; the Institut Francais de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER), Martinique; the Centro de Investigaciones Marinas (CIM) and the Instituto de Oceanologia (IO) in Cuba; and the Centro de Investigaciones de Biologia Marina (CIBIMA) in the Dominican Republic. Many of the above institutions are members of the Association of Marine Labora tories of the Caribbean.
More comprehensive programs with important components in coastal area management are conducted at the Institute of Marine Affairs (IMA), Trinidad; the Natural Resources Conservation Department (NRCD), Jamaica, and, in Puerto Rico, the Division of Marine R esearch of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) as well as the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) through its Sea Grant College Program (UPR-SGCP), which now also houses COSALC-I, actively involved in fieldwork on Beach and Coastal Stability in the Lesser Antilles, with Dr. Gillian Cambers as Coordinator. Coastal hazard- related activities are conducted at the Seismic Research Units of the UWI in Jamaica and Trinidad and UPR, and the Caribbean Meteorologic Institute (CMI) in Barbados.
"Expatriate" marine laboratories which principally serve as a base of operations for faculty and students of American universities include the Bellairs Research Institute (BRI) of McGill University, with facilities for 20 visiting scientists, and Hofstra University's Marine Laboratory (HUML), Jamaica. Unfortunately, Fairleigh Dickinson University's West Indies Marine Laboratory was forced to close down following Hurricane Hugo in 1992. The Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory (DBML), Jamaica, founded by Thomas F. Goreau in 1965 conducts a wide variety of coral reef studies and has facilities for 20 scientists and 30 students, mainly from North America and Europe. CARMABI, Curacao, also has limited facilities for research, often in cooperation with Dutch universities.
Considerable amounts of cooperative research projects are conducted by American Universities and research institutions, chiefly in Florida, e.g., the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science of the University of Miami (RSMAS), the University of South Florida, the Florida Institute of Oceanography (FIO), Nova University Oceanographic Center and the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), whose founder, Dr. Harris Stewart, performed a vital role in IOCARIBE's first efforts. Other active Caribbean research partners are the Center for Wetland Resources and the Coastal Studies Institute of Louisiana State University, the Institute for Geophysics of the University of Texas (UTIG) and Texas A&M University.
As an example of these cooperative efforts, here is the distribution, by
nationality, of attendees at the Caribbean Geological Conferences in St.
Croix (1986):
Americas 72 (USA 50)
Caribbean 35 (Trin. 10)
Islands
Europe 11 (French 4)
Total 118
(20 nations)
and Barbados (1989)
Americas 87 (USA 75)
Caribbean 46 (P.R. 13)
Islands
Europe 11 (Swiss 3)
Total 144
(19 nations)
while the Caribbean Conference on Natural Hazards, Trinidad, 1993
attracted over 150 attendees from 33 nations (Ambeh, 1994).
Networking in coastal area management and planning is through the CAMPNET. According to the World Bank (1993), networks linked by computers have not worked satisfactorily and are inferior to the more effective but expensive medium of periodic meetings.
This conclusion is bound to change with such rapidly evolving improvements as World Wide Web (WWW).
With this conviction, we actively solicit addresses and information about other existing as well as
newly established networks, which will be inserted under the CSP homepage discussed in section 5.5.
Databases are maintained by many of the institutions and organizations mentioned in the preceding sections of this paper. Several of these databases already are or shortly will be available on the Internet - including WWW - as well as in standard computerized, taped, typewritten or handwritten form. A recent proposal to establish the Caribbean Beach Erosion Network (BEACHNET), lists 60 presently involved persons from 31 organizations on 10 small island nations. Its objectives are ... "to ensure that the existing databases on beach changes in ... 10 island nations ... are available and understandable to all levels of the islands' societies, such that they can be used and applied in the management of beach resources within a coastal zone management (CZM) framework; to maintain and expand the existing beach change databases in the islands and provide further training in data interpretation." In the rationale, the importance of beaches is stressed: "they are an intrinsic part of the vital tourist industry, provide areas for local recreation, and protect coastal infrastructure from flooding and storm damage" and it is stated that: "... the most successful and sustainable projects are those in which the entire community is involved." (Cambers, 1995, pers. com .).
In the process of conducting the present survey, the authors were astonished about the prolific amount of ICAM information which can be obtained by employing alternative methods to the common approach of searching the existing published literature, c.q. journals. In fact, very little material is 'officially' published, and considerably more is contained in 'gray literature,' such as conference proceedings, workshop summaries, N.G.O. brochures and reports, newsletters, newspapers and magazines, tourism organizations files, and numerous reports by U.N. and National agencies. The present paper is merely a beginning in compiling and summarizing at least some of this wealth of information, in the hope that "information overload is pattern recognition."
Because presentation of all the information we gathered is impossible within the scope of this paper, we have opted to initiate a "Caribbean Coastal Studies" homepage on World Wide Web, using the outline provided in Table 1. Presently available through this homepage are some sixty graphs about our 1992 and 1995 surveys, as well as some general statistics and data on tourism for the Caribbean Islands. It is not the intent to include any such hard-data as beach surveys or pollutant analyses, although relevant summaries and case histories are 'fair game.' We invite the readers to send us comments, suggestions, and interesting material (including *.GIF graphs or figures) which we may be able to add with minimum editing. The homepage URL is: (formerly: http://www.millersv.edu/~boostdam/CCS.html; presently (1999): https://members.tripod.com/~Carib_Coastal/index.html) and additions can be either mailed conventionally or E- mailed to: (formerly: CCS/www.millersv.edu; presently (1999) boostdam@hotmail.com)
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