Regardless of all the activities available on land, it is once visitors enter the water that they truly experience the Cayman Islands. Whether just swimming along Seven Mile Beach, snorkelling out at Rum Point, diving off West Bay, or even taking a trip to Cayman Brac or Little Cayman for a change of underwater scenery, the diversity of colourful life that abounds in the crystal clear waters is something that stays with visitors all their lives.
Yet were it not for Cayman’s Marine Parks, much of this may already have been lost.
The marine protected areas of the Cayman Islands celebrate 25 years of existence this year – a mere blip in the history of the coral reefs around the Islands, but a quarter of a century in which their existence has already had a major impact.
Gina Ebanks-Petrie, director of the Department of Environment, says that when the parks were originally put in place, there was a limited amount of data on Cayman’s reef environment. However, there was a definite awareness that damage was being done to the reefs, an awareness built by the dive operations in Cayman. They were one of the driving forces in not only providing information on what they found under water, but also in helping to push for the preservation of the reefs, so that diving could continue being a major part of Cayman’s tourism.
According to John Bothwell of the DoE the original aim of the protection was to prevent physical damage to the reefs, often caused by boats anchoring in the area. As part of this initiative the DoE, began installing permanent moorings, an ongoing initiative with the Cayman Islands Tourism Association. By the end of this year, the target is to have 365 of these moorings dotted around the Islands.
What 25 years of data has shown is that the protection has definitely helped. However, the greater knowledge has also shown that although certain protected areas like the one on the western side of the Island are working very well indeed, others are not. The large, continuous area under protection from West Bay down to South Sound means that creatures have freedom of movement while still remaining within the protected areas. According to John, even species thought of as not highly mobile, like conch and lobster, move about a lot and therefore need larger protected areas. Protecting individual pockets of coral is not enough.
The protection envisioned 25 years ago did not really take into account the need to protect fin fish to the extent that such protection is now needed. According to Gina, the need for this protection is especially evident as the role of apex predators like the big groupers emerge. It has been shown that reefs in the Bahamas with healthy big grouper populations have much lower concentrations of lionfish than those without. And Cayman has serious issues with its grouper populations, a situation that will have to be reversed if there is to be any hope of stemming the tide of the beautiful but dangerous lionfish.
There is also a need to protect habitats that extend outside the ocean. The mangroves act as a nursery for many species of fish and crustaceans, which means that even if the coral reefs are protected but the mangroves are not, it can cause a catastrophic imbalance in the ecosystem that will in the long term have a very negative impact on the reefs.
The DoE is busy working through the data it has collected over the years, including data most recently collected as part of the latest Darwin Initiative project. The department will soon move into a phase of consultation on the future of the marine parks, and what might be needed over the next 25 years to ensure the ongoing survival of Cayman’s reefs against an ever changing series of global challenges including rising ocean temperatures. Although there is very little that Cayman can do about changes on a global scale, anything that can be done locally to ease pressure on the reefs could mean the difference between continuing to enjoy the underwater wonderland we have become so used to, or looking back 25 years from now and wondering ‘what if?’ WH