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Biodiversity Summary of Eight Caribbean Countries

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Biodiversity Summary of Eight Caribbean Countries BIO-PROSPECTING IN THE CARIBBEAN REGION Biodiversity Summary of eight Caribbean countries BIODIVESITY OF EIGHT CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES The designation of geographical entities in this book, and the presentation of the material, do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the IUCN, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) or the UN Environment concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the IUCN, the GEF or the UNEnvironment. This product has been produced with the support of United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment), and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) under the framework of the project Advancing the Nagoya Protocol in Countries in the Caribbean Region. Published by: IUCN, Gland, Switzerland in collaboration with Regional Office for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean Copyright: © 2018 International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Reproduction of this publication for educational or other non-commercial purposes is authorized without prior written permission from the copyright holder provided the source is fully acknowledged. Reproduction of this publication for resale or other commercial purposes is prohibited without prior written permission of the copyright holder. Authors: Sylvia Mitchell Kevel C. Lindsay Anthony Richards Cover photo: https://pixabay.com/es/ • http://es.freeimages.com/ • http://www.freepik.es/ Available from: IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Regional Office for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean San José, Costa Rica Tel ++ 506 2283 8449 [email protected] This publication is developed under the project “Advancing the Nagoya Protocol in countries of the Caribbean Region to assist the countries to create an enabling environment for the accessing of and benefiting from the use of genetic resources in the Caribbean 2 BIODIVESITY OF EIGHT CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES Contents Page I List of Figures 3 Ii List of Maps 3 Iii List of Photos 3 iv List of Tables 4 1.0 Executive summary 5 2.0 Introduction 6 3.0 Antigua, Barbuda and Redonda 8 4.0 Barbados 13 5.0 Guyana 17 6.0 Grenada, Carriacou and Petit Martinique 23 7.0 Jamaica 28 8.0 St. Kitts and Nevis 33 9.0 St. Lucia 44 10.0 Trinidad and Tobago 50 11.0 Summary 56 12.0 References 57 3 BIODIVESITY OF EIGHT CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES List of Figures Figure 1 The Global Trees Campaign to save the rare Lesser Antillean endemic tree Protium 49 attenuatum List of Maps Map 1 Biogeographic map of the West Indies 6 Map 2 1700 map showing both St Kitts and Nevis, and the extent of farms and property 40 ownership on both islands List of Photos Photo 1 The endemic Antigua Broad-winged Hawk 9 Photo 2 Fossil specimen of the endemic snail, Bulimulus hummelincki, 11 from Barbuda Photo 3 The Barbados Bullfinch (Loxigilla barbadensis) 14 Photo 4 Turner’s Hall Woods, northern Barbados 16 Photo 5 The Golden Rocket Frog (Anomaloglossus beebei), an endemic restricted to the 19 Kaieteur Falls area of Guyana Photo 6 Kaieteur Falls, November 2016 22 Photo 7 Typical upland landscape of Petit Martinique, dominated by the introduced highly 24 invasive shrub, Purple Allamanda (Cryptostegia madagascariensis) Photo 8 Southern end of Grand Etang crater lake and surrounding forested peaks 27 Photo 9 An unknown species of Siparuna sp., a tree observed by Island Resources Foundation 28 team, including Kevel Lindsay, in 2011 Photo 10 Nevis Peak, hidden below the clouds, as seen from the western shores. 41 Photo 11 Specimen of the St. Lucia Giant Rice Rat (Megalomys luciae), London Natural History 48 Museum. List of Tables Table 1 Summary of the flora and fauna of Antigua 8 Table 2 Terrestrial fauna endemic to Antigua, Barbuda and Redonda 10 Table 3 Summary of the flora and fauna of Barbados 13 Table 4 Barbados endemic terrestrial fauna 15 Table 5 Summary of the flora and fauna of Guyana 18 Table 6 Terrestrial fauna endemic to Guyana 20 Table 7 Summary of the flora and fauna of Grenada, Carriacou and Petit Martinique 25 Table 8 Terrestrial fauna endemic to Grenada, Carriacou and Petit Martinique 26 Table 9 Species richness and endemism in plants of Jamaica 30 Table 10 Forestry Inventory assessment of Jamaica 31 Table 11 Marine biodiversity summary of Jamaica 33 Table 12 St Kitts and Nevis Land Use 35 Table 13 Summary of the flora and fauna of St. Kitts and Nevis 35 Table 14 Terrestrial fauna endemic to St. Kitts and Nevis 36 Table 15 Regional and local endemic plants of St Kitts and Nevis 43 Table 16 Summary of the benthic community of St. Kitts and Nevis 44 Table 17 Summary of the flora and fauna of St. Lucia 45 Table 18 Terrestrial endemic flora of St. Lucia 46 Table 19 Summary of the flora and fauna of Trinidad and Tobago 52 Table 20 Terrestrial endemic flora and fauna of Trinidad and Tobago 53 Table 21 Endemic plant species of Trinidad and Tobago 56 4 BIODIVESITY OF EIGHT CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES 1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In June 2016, the consultancy team of Anthony Richards, Sylvia Mitchell and Kevel Lindsay were contracted by IUCN to Advancing the Nagoya Protocol in Countries of the Caribbean Region – Access and Benefits Sharing – Bioprospecting in the Caribbean Region. This report is part of the key outputs from this initiative, and forms part of the IUCN’s efforts to support countries of the Caribbean to facilitate access to their genetic resources and benefit sharing in a fair and equitable way, in line with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol (NP). More specifically, the effort seeks the uptake of the Nagoya Protocol and implementation of key measures to make the protocol operational in Caribbean countries. The project aims to overcome barriers linked to limited understanding of the NP and access and benefits sharing (ABS), and of the implications of protocol ratification and requirements for implementation, so that countries can make progress in ABS and take an informed decision regarding its ratification. The Caribbean islands are of critical importance for global biodiversity conservation as large percentages of each species group are endemic to the region and often to particular islands and levels of endemism are very high in the region: thus, 50 per cent of the plant life of the Caribbean is unique to the region (UNEP, 2010). These high valued genetic resources in the Caribbean are under threat due to land degradation, climate change, pollution from nutrients, unsustainable uses, and invasive alien species. The NP offers the opportunity to make the best possible use of these genetic resources, generate and share benefits derived from their utilization, and return some of the revenue generated from these activities to the protection of the resources and the development of the countries where they were sourced. This IUCN project consists of five components aimed at building knowledge between countries of shared assets, generating technical information that can later be used to build cohesive policies at the national level and collaboratively at the regional level, assisting countries to take steps and decisions conducive to ratification of the NP assisting countries in developing the tools and guidelines required to implement the basic measures of the NP and bringing together the participating countries to allow for the maximum level of exchange and networking. This report is part of the team’s effort to bring focus on the extent of research and knowledge on the biodiversity of the Caribbean region, and for regional governments, institutions and people to understand where gaps are in our understanding and knowledge of our own biodiversity, and how this is being researched, gathered, archived, published, shared, commercialized, used, and accessed. This project team decided that this report was needed, and should add value to other outputs as contracted under this consultancy. 5 BIODIVESITY OF EIGHT CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES 2.0 INTRODUCTION The biodiversity of the eight Caribbean countries outlined in this report, is varied, geographically disparate, biogeographically divergent and very different from location to location. But the one commonality, overall, is that many of the species and their habitats are threatened in one way or another. Map 1. Biogeographic or faunal Region of the West Indies. Source: Raffaele et al, 2003. Biogeographically, islands of the Bahamian Archipelago (including the Turks and Caicos), Greater Antilles, and the Lesser Antilles south to Grenada, form the West Indies biogeographic region, as distinct from the wider Caribbean Basin, which includes the Caribbean watershed areas of Central America to Venezuela. The West Indies Biogeographic Region is broadly defined as oceanic islands from the Bahamas in the north, to Grenada and Barbados in the south, all of which share geological and ecological commonalities, and whose origins are wholly oceanic. Map 1 shows the West Indies Biogeographic/Faunal Region, as defined by ornithologist James Bond, who wrote the original ‘Birds of the West Indies’, first editions published in the 1930s, and here excerpted from Birds of the West Indies by Raffaele et al, 2003. 6 BIODIVESITY OF EIGHT CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES Countries such as Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana, included in this report, are South American in geological origin, with Trinidad and Tobago being islands on their own. However, their geologies and biological frameworks are largely South American. The report does not provide a detailed overview of the total number or all of the species of each of these eight countries, but provides a summary of what is known, and highlights some of the many gaps in our understanding and knowledge. Larger islands, with larger populations, such as Jamaica and Guyana, have greater biodiversity, are further along in their research and documentation of their biodiversity, natural resources and solutions to the many challenges, while smaller islands such as Antigua, are further behind, even though many of the species have much smaller total areas of distributions, and are therefore, far more threatened.
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