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island resources F O U N D A T I O N 6292 Estate Nazareth #100 St. Thomas U.S. Virgin Islands 00802 340/775-6225; fax 779-2022 1718 P Street NW, Suite T4 Washington, DC 20036 202/265-9712; fax 232-0748 123 Main Street, PO Box 3097 Road Town, Tortola BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS Tel. and Fax: 284/494-2723 Post Office Box 2103 St. John's, ANTIGUA Tel. and Fax: 268/463-7740 Via the Internet at: irf@irf.org h t t p : / / w w w. l r f . o r g Board of Trustees Dr. Edward L. Towle Chairman Bruce G. Potter President Henry U. Wheatley Vice President Charles W. Consolvo Secretary Judith A. Towle Treasurer Dr. Henry G. Jarecki Dr LaVerne E. Ragster Trustees TJV& Y&asr 2 001 i>n/ He^vue^w Bust furytr cu wo-rds a/lro-u/t b-uo-d/uv&ryuty . . . Since its launching in 1972, Island Resources Foundation's traditional preoccupation with small island systems has been balanced by a broader focus on conservation and protection issues. More recently, insular biodiversity has provided a conceptual basis for many of the Foundation's program interests. The small size of islands has often belied the rich biodiversity such landscapes support. For over a decade, the Foundation had argued with international conservation groups and donor agencies that standard assessment methodologies obscured the high density of insular biodiversity. Fortunately, the global conservation community now concurs, and prominent ecologists currently acknowledge that the Caribbean and other insular regions are among the most threatened biodiversity "hotspots" in the world. What are "hotspots"? In the late 1980s, Dr. Norman Myers, an independent scientist and Fellow of Oxford University, first suggested that a sound way to conserve threatened species was to concentrate attention on "biodiversity hotspots", those areas where exceptional concentrations of endemic species were undergoing exceptional loss of habitat. Most recently, in an update of his original analyses, Myers and his colleagues identified 25 hotspots, which together make up only 1.4 percent of the Earth's land surface but contain 60 percent or more of all terrestrial biodiversity. What is most significant for Island Resources Foundation and its Caribbean constituency is the fact that the region is ranked for the first time as among the "hottest of the hot". In rankings that looked both at species diversity and diversity and endemism per unit area, it was found that the Caribbean, the Philippines, and Madagascar and the Indian Ocean Islands could arguably be considered the three highest- priority hotspots of all. These findings were not a surprise for Madagascar and the Philippines since both have long been ranked as among the most threatened hotspots. But the appearance of the Caribbean is a revelation since the region did not even appear in Myers's (1988 or 1990) or Conservation International's (1990) original analyses of hotspots. What do these findings mean? They clearly demonstrate the importance of islands, especially tropical islands, in global efforts to conserve biodiversity. Eight of the 25 hotspots are island groups, all of them tropical or subtropical. In fact, almost all of the world's tropical islands are included in the 25 hotspots. For the Caribbean, it means that this region deserves priority attention from the global community and should be among the first to receive support for biodiversity conservation. In writing about the three "hottest" island areas in Hotspots: Earth's Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions, Myers and his colleagues state, "We simply are not likely to have a second chance in these areas if our investments over the next few years fail to produce results. Very little remains/ and every little piece of natural habitat that has managed to survive is both especially fragile and tremen dously important in global terms." Another island landscape, this one in Sabah, Malaysia, visited by the Foundation's president following a speaking engagement in the country's capital, Kuala Lumpur, in October. Sabah is located in the northeast of the island of Borneo overlooking the South China Sea. (photo by Bruce Potter) lyLovvid/ IZewwro&y ^ouMxLafcicm/ — Pictured above at the Hamburg meeting of GIN are (from left): Graeme Robertson from the Isle of Skye, Scotland (president of the Global Islands Network), lain Orr from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Eriyawan Enoch from Indonesia, and Alopi Latukefu from Western Samoa. For over 7 years, IRF's president Bruce Potter has aggressively promoted the expansion of Internet technologies in small islands to support sustainable development. Most recently, Bruce has represented the Foundation as a charter member of GIN (Global Islands Network), a prototype for a world wide, Internet-based information network designed to provide easy access to the best information available on sustainable island development. In October, representatives from two dozen regional island networks met in Hamburg, Germany for consultations on the scope and direction of the emerging Global Islands Network. Upon his return from Hamburg, Potter reported that one of the most encouraging features of GIN is its focus on all small islands, regardless of geography or political status. QXxybcd/EvwiA'CrYim&rJt'Outlooks Since 1999, Island Resources Foundation has cooperated with the Mexico City regional office of UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) in assessing and reporting on the state of the environment in the Caribbean. The Foundation and the Caribbean Conservation Association in Barbados were identified as "Collaborating Centers", joining 44 such centers worldwide in an extensive assessment and reporting initiative known as the Global Environment Outlook (GEO). As part of the GEO review process, Bruce Potter met with other collaborators in Havana, Cuba in July to assess the Caribbean marine and coastal com ponents of the third GEO report, scheduled for release in 2002. (above, left to right) Luc St. Pierre, Information Officer at UNEP's Regional Coor dinating Unit in Jamaica; Kaveh Zahedi from the UNEP Regional Office in Mexico City; and Manuel Alepuz, Director General of Cuba's Man and the Biosphere (MAB) program, in attendance at July 2001 GEO meetings in Havana, Cuba. Plaza Central en Habana, Cuba Acropora polmata (elkhorn) coral (photo by Joff Miller) Viy&ccppeotrLyngy Cored/ Reefy Life-saving medicines, tourism, protective coastline barriers, and an incredible diversity of life forms are all under threat because of diminishing coral reefs around the world, according to a new atlas from UNEP and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UK). According to WCMC, the spacial area covered by coral reefs worldwide is about as large as Italy and is spread among 101 countries. That is at best half or even a tenth of earlier estimates. Island Resources Foundation is currently working on a federally funded project in the US Virgin Islands to help reverse this trend. Using aerial photo-interpretation technology, this research will document distribution of elkhorn coral, once the primary reef-building species in shallow reef zones throughout the Caribbean. In recent decades, however, it has been decimated by white band disease. Photo-interpreter Jean-Pierre Bade heads this project for IRF. Additionally, in 2001, the Foundation coordinated the second printing and Spanish translation of the much-in-demand Coral Roof Monitoring Manual first developed by the National Park Service and VI National Park in 1994. The manual was designed as a practical hands-on guide for scientists, students and park managers directly engaged in monitoring and protecting coral reef ecosystems. IRF Program Associate Dr. Caroline S. Rogers is the manual's principal author. Sel&ct&d/ S napyfaoty from/ 2001 Iwtervw at IRF ov 28 -year hCytory of e^erieyvxtiab learvxLwgy Since 1973 Island Resources Foundation has sponsored 46 student interns from North American and Caribbean universities. Generally interns have been assigned to the Foundation's offices in St. Thomas, Tortola, Washington, DC, and Antigua, with approximately one-quarter placed with our Caribbean institutional partners, primarily conservation-based NGOs. Our first intern in 1973 was John McEachern, then a graduate student at Cornell University. Working with Foundation founder Ed Towle, John's research during his internship helped to produce a then-pioneering work on island ecosystems (later published by IUCN as Ecological Guidelines for Island Development). John paid a visit to the IRF office in Tortola in August, where our most recent intern, Meghan Jeans from the Vermont Law School, had spent the summer researching proposed changes to BVI envi ronmental legislation. Meghan's internship was co-sponsored by t h e B V I N a t i o n a l P a r k s T r u s t . . , , M ° 9 h ° n ■! « " » with Foundation president Bruce Porter John McEachern in Tortola Aug. 2001 EyVi/ironmeyvXtcd/ Louv In March, following a request from the BVI National Parks Trust, IRF's Sandy Cay project sponsored a return visit to the British Virgin Islands of Barbara Lausche, who had worked in the Territory 15 years ago. In 1987 Lausche was asked by the BVI Government to draft new "nature conservation" legislation focused particu larly on protected areas and wildlife protection. While no action was taken at that time, it is encouraging that there are now new initiatives underway to revise and update Lausche's earlier work (in part to incorporate more recent international conventions such as RAMSAR, SPAW, CITES, and Biological Diversity), and to carry the legislation forward to full enactment. Lausche, formerly an environment lawyer at the World Wildlife Fund-US, IUCN, and The World Bank, is affiliated with the Foundation as a Program Associate and had previously worked with IRF in St. Kitts. Sandy Cay Pictured are Roy Thomas (left), for 33 years horticulturist for the island of Sandy Cay (BVI), and Rowan Roy, BVI naturalist, on a recent field trip to the is land. For two years, Island Resources has been studying this privately owned island on behalf of its owner, Laurance S. Rockefeller. In 2001 a management plan for Sandy Cay's future was prepared. In that document, the Foundation examined the natural events and human responses that characterize more than three decades of management by a single owner. From this record of management choices and decision making—for an island character ized by its owner as a "wilderness garden" —lessons and guideposts were identified to instruct and challenge future genera tions of Sandy Cay resource managers. The relatively undeveloped peninsular area pictured to the left forms the southeastern comer of North Sound in Virgin Gorda (BVI). Known as Pajaros Point peninsula, it was the focus of a socio-economic planning study by Island Resources in 2001. Although privately owned, the penin sula lies mostly within a proposed protected area. Given the site's unique natural features as well as the overlapping interests of public and private stakeholders, it is currently a candidate for a pilot co-management strategy that might, by example, extend to the larger North Sound area. Co-management, simply put, is a resource management concept that pro vides for direct involvement and cooperation between public and private stakeholders to achieve sustainable development. The Foundation's recent study defined preliminary terms of reference for such a dynamic co- management process at this particular North Sound site. M CyfarXayvxe/ F.\v^i^or\^viertaX/ LettderyhCp Award/ Our congratulations to Charles Chavoudiga of Guadeloupe, the 2001 recipient of the Euan P. McFarlane Environmental Leadership Award. Since 1988, Island Resources Foundation has annually presented this 51,000 cash prize to individuals who demonstrate conservation leadership in the Carib bean. Mr. Chavoudiga's award was based on his visionary and untiring work with a rural community in the Grande Riviere Valley of Guadeloupe, once a pros perous agricultural center where traditional eco nomic development approaches had failed by the end of the 20,h Century. "Chavoudiga's work with the community of Vieux-Habitants is an outstanding example of integrating environmental stewardship and balanced development," said Edward Towle, chair of IRF's board of trustees, "the very attributes that the McFarlane Award seeks to honor." Euan McFarlane, after whom this Award is named, was until his death in 1983 actively involved in Caribbean environmental causes, serving on the boards of both the Caribbean Conservation Associa tion and Island Resources Foundation. Laurance S. Rockefeller provided endowment funding for the Award. The following individuals have received earlier McFarlane Awards: Yves Renard Mervin Williams Ronald Charles Arlington James Alissandra Cummins Kevel Lindsay Jalaludin Ahmad Khan Reginald Murphy Maurice Widdowson Andrew Simpson Ian Lambie David Robinson St. Lucia St. Lucia Dominica Dominica Barbados Antigua-Barbuda Trinidad-Tobago Antigua-Barbuda St. Kitts St. Croix, USVI Trinidad-Tobago Nevis New Home/ iav Road/Tow w Up cnxeyfU^htcyf^a^ybutittiicvtl23 McUrVStreet Since 1999, the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College (HLSCC) has provided a base of operations for the Foundation in the British Virgin Islands. Also housed at the Road Town facility provided by the College is the Island Systems Environmental Information Centre, operated jointly by IRF and the College as a research library. In 1998, the Foundation donated its unique refer ence collection on insular ecosystems and island-based resource management to the College, and the College subsequently identified space for both the Foundation and the library at its Road Town Annex. Early in 2001, the College announced a new partnership with the New England Culinary Institute to establish an educational and training program in the culi nary arts at HLSCC. Part of the program includes operation of an in-town cafe" by students from the new culinary arts school. The site selected for the cafe was the Lower Main Street ground-floor facility then occupied by the Founda tion and the Islands Systems Information Centre. Ed and Judith Towle share a light moment at the BVI office just prior to the August relocation of the IRF offices in Rood Town The decision meant IRF had to move, but if you are looking for us in Road Town, you need not look too far from our former location at 123 Main Street. In fact, we are in the same building, up one flight of stairs to the second floor—with the College's cafe housed on the first floor to tempt all library patrons and Foundation visitors! CorahWorld/ If you are in St. Thomas, USVI, you may want to stop by the Foundation's new space at the Coral World aquarium and underwater ob servatory at Coki Point. IRF's utilization of this space—made possible through the generosity of Coral World president Trudie Prior and IRF trustee Henry Wheatley—has regret tably been delayed. But we expect to open the doors on this facility in early 2002. It will be utilized as an NGO reference center for U.S. Virgin Islands- based non-governmental organizations and as a community education and learning center. The information available in the library focuses on the U.S. Virgin Islands and, in particular, its marine and coastal environments. WhatyOW cayw do- To- cvyyuyt Iyta<nd/ Re^ourceyy foundation/ After 29 years of successful program development, the Island Resources Foun dation's commitment to island communities and insular environments continues to evolve and expand. Around the world, but primarily in the Caribbean, we have implemented proj ects that range from impact assessments to tourism development, park planning to coastal resource management, from water quality studies to cultural resource utilization — all with one overarching theme: to help small islands meet the challenges of growth and change while protecting and enhancing their environ ments. As we enter our 30th year, we hope you will join us in this important mission and make a substantial contribution in support of the Foundation. Your donations will help Island Resources Foundation to: Apply sound science to environmental problem solving in islands. Strengthen the technical skills of islanders and the collaborative capacities of island institutions. Improve the availability of information resources for and about islands. Educate international agencies and donor institutions about the uniqueness of islands. SEND YOUR CONTRIBUTION TODAY TO: Island Resources Foundation 1718 P Street Northwest, Suite T4 Washington, DC 20036