The Wider Caribbean region is prone to natural hazards and technological disasters. Each year we experience active hurricane seasons and sometimes large amounts of rainfall. This often results in severe flooding as well as damage to infrastructure and production, which in turn, affects economic growth and productivity.Fortunately the Wider Caribbean also possesses rich natural resources that can help to mitigate and even minimize the impact of disasters. One such natural resource is yes, our wetlands.
Wetlands provide an important source of fresh water for humanity and is home to more than 100,000 freshwater species, which continue to increase in number. Across the Caribbean region you are likely to find various wetland types such as: marshes, lagoons, swamp forest, mangroves, corals, rivers and other coastal wetlands. Their functions include: providing habitat for animals and plants, purifying waterways through a natural filtering system as well as storing water for future use.
They also have disaster mitigation functions such as: controlling/regulating the flow of water, protecting our shoreline from coastal surges, absorbing excess rainfall to reduce flooding, and providing windbreak. This allows coastal areas a natural, protective buffer from hurricane and storm damage.
Scientific estimates show that 64% of the world’s wetlands have disappeared since the 1900s and the remaining ones are being degraded faster than any other ecosystem.
Mangrove forests too, are disappearing at a rate of 1 to 2 percent per year, a pace that surpasses the destruction of adjacent coral reef and tropical rainforest ecosystems.
Some of the most degraded ecosystems in Latin America and the Caribbean are mangroves, wetlands and coral reefs, resulting in the loss of valuable ecosystem services, such as sewage treatment by mangrove wetlands systems and the eco-tourism essential for many Caribbean economies.
A survey of 220 Eastern Caribbean coastal wetlands (predominantly mangroves) between 1989 and 1991 revealed that virtually every site visited in the 16 islands showed evidence of damage, and more than 50 percent showed severe damage (Bacon 1993). As a result, these losses, combined with increasing fragmentation of mangroves reduce their viability and the quality of the services they provide.

Overall, the region is losing mangrove forests at 1 percent per year, although the rate is much faster on the Caribbean mainland (1.7% per year) than it is on the islands (0.2% per year).  The region’s fisheries are declining at a similar rate, as most commercial shellfish and finfish use mangrove for nurseries and/or refuge.
Further to this, few Caribbean states have legislation or enforcement capabilities to protect or manage mangrove, although at least 11 international treaties and conventions could be applied to conserve or sustainably use these forests.
If wetlands are allowed to function as intended then our governments could avoid spending millions in the restoration process following disasters. By serving as a source of food or income, wetlands enable local communities to be more resilient and less vulnerable to disasters.
The Wider Caribbean region stands to benefit from conservation and protection of their wetlands; whether as a source of energy/food, recreation/tourism opportunity, and waste-water treatment facility or simply for its aesthetics. Currently, wetlands now face great threat as a result of burning, overfishing, pollution, housing developments on swamp lands, drainage through agriculture, as well as the cutting down of trees for timber and charcoal.
On a more positive note, Caribbean countries such as Anguilla, Aruba, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, have maintained their mangrove areas relatively constant over the past 25 years. As a result of increased awareness in the region, the annual rate of mangrove area loss has decreased in the last five years in 24 countries within the Caribbean.
The Ramsar Convention and UN Environment’s Caribbean Environment Programme, through its Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW) protocol continue to work with several local, national and regional groups and organizations to conserve and sustainably manage the use of wetlands and their resources; yet national commitments have to be made to reduce the threat of humans on wetlands.
World Wetlands Day celebrated this year on February 2, under the theme “Wetlands: A Natural Safeguard against disasters”, provides the perfect opportunity to get involved in the conservation of our Caribbean wetlands. We should stop draining or filling wetlands and clearing mangroves for agricultural purposes and housing developments, destroying coral reefs, and burning peatlands.
We can support our local and regional environmental groups as they seek to protect and conserve our natural resources. We can all commit to simple actions to preserve our wetlands by saving water, recycling trash and reducing harmful waste, use as little fertilizer as possible and avoid the use of toxic pesticides. The preservation of wetlands is everybody’s business, for World Wetlands Day and beyond.
The article is a combined effort of the United Nations Environment, Caribbean Sub-regional Office, and the UN Environment Caribbean Environment Programme, located in Kingston Jamaica. Together they promote and enhance environmental sustainability in the Wider Caribbean region.
Send comments to unep.caribbean@pnuma.org and rcu@cep.unep.org.