NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program

Comprehensive U.S. Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring Project (C-CCREMP): Report on the Results of the C-CCREMP FY 2006 Workshops

2007

NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program

The purpose of this report is to document and convey the results from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral Reef Conservation Programs (CRCP) workshops conducted in late FY2006 on implementing a U.S. Caribbean Comprehensive Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring Project (C-CCREMP). C-CCREMP is a new CRCP project that is attempting to expand and integrate current coral reef ecosystem monitoring activities into a comprehensive long-term assessment and monitoring program involving federal agencies, academia, local resource marine management agencies, and other partners in the U.S. Caribbean. An initial C-CCREMP project objective is to determine the need and feasibility of developing a monitoring program for the Caribbean that is similar to the CRCP Pacific Resources Assessment and Monitoring Program (PacRAMP), which uses consistent characterization and assessment methods to monitor U.S.-affiliated islands in the Pacific. The overall goal of the developing project is to improve capabilities to document and understand the condition of marine resources and changes in coral reef ecosystem health within and across Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Navassa Island. The workshops were an initial component of the project intended to introduce the project to partners and solicit input from the scientific and management community. In addition, the workshops were designed to obtain feedback on the need and feasibility of developing the C-CCREMP concept in order to provide NOAA and its partners with a comparative assessment and comprehensive coral ecosystem monitoring capability across the U.S. Caribbean. The information presented in this C-CCREMP report summarizes the input from local and regional partners and will be used to guide the direction of the project in FY07 and beyond.

FY2007 CRCP Project ID 10051; Project Title: US Caribbean Comprehensive Coral Reef Ecosystem Assessment and Monitoring Project; Principal Investigator: Ron Hill