Foreword

Rex Nettleford

Guest Editorial

Neville McMorris

Science For The People

Lloyd Coke

A Clear Human Footprint in the Coral Reefs of the Caribbean

Camilo Mora

A journey through the Medicinal Plant Industry of the Caribbean highlighting UWI's Contribution

Sylvia A. Mitchell, Rani-Devi Jagnarine, Raxon Simmonds, Taja Francis, David Picking and Mohammed H. Ahmad

Interviews with Professor Hugh Wynter

Joan Meade and Pansy Hamilton

NOTES AND COMMENTS

The Climate Studies Group Mona:

Tannecia S. Stephenson, A. Anthony Chen, Michael A. Taylor

Information on Contributors

Mohammed H. Ahmad is Professor of Biotechnology, and Director, Biotechnology Centre, UWI, Mona

The honourable A. Anthony Chen is Professor Emeritus, Physics, UWI, Mona and a joint holder of the 2007, Nobel Prize.

Lloyd Coke now deceased was a Senior Lecturer, Botany, UWI, Mona and Guest Editor for CQ

Taja Francis is a graduate student, Biotechnology Centre, UWI, Mona

Pansy Hamilton is Research Fellow, The Hugh Wynter Fertility Management Unit, Faculty of Medicine, UWI, Mona

Rani-Devi Jagnarine, is a graduate student, Biotechnology Centre, UWI, Mona

Camilo Mora is Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Dalhousie University, Canada

Neville McMorris Guest Editor and Member of Editorial Board, Caribbean Quarterly was Senior

Lecturer, Physics, UWI, Mona

Joan Meade is the Training Officer, The Hugh Wynter Fertility Management Unit, Faculty of Medicine, UWI, Mona

Sylvia A. Mitchell, is Lecturer, Biotechnology Centre, and Director of MPRG, UWI, Mona

David Picking is a graduate student, Biotechnology Centre, UWI, Mona

Raxon Simmonds is a graduate student, Biotechnology Centre, UWI, Mona

Tannecia S. Stephenson is a lecturer, Dept. Physics, UWI, Mona

Michael A. Taylor is a lecturer, Dept. Physics, UWI, Mona

Hugh Wynter is Professor Emeritus, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, UWI, Mona

Abstracts

The Climate Studies Group, Mona, A. Anthony Chen et al.

Since its inception in 1994, the Climate Studies Group Mona (CSGM) within the Department of Physics at the University of the West Indies, has been involved in ground breaking Caribbean-centred climate research. The research mandate falls within four (4) main areas: (I) mean and extreme climate and their associated mechanisms; (ii) prediction of climate on an annual and interannual time-scale; (iii) climate change and its impacts; and (iv) renewable energy prospects. The research has been conducted in partnership with several local, regional and international agencies including the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica, Meteorological Service of Jamaica, the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology, and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. The work has led to an improved understanding of the atmospheric sciences at work for the Caribbean, and to clearer qualifications of the linkages between Caribbean climate and a number of socio-economic sectors including agriculture, health and tourism. The results have been documented in results have been published in local and international peer reviewed journals, and presented at various workshops and conferences.

A journey through the Medicinal Plant Industry of the Caribbean highlighting Our Contribution, Sylvia A. Mitchell, Rani-Devi Jagnarine, Raxon Simmonds, Taja Francis, David Picking and Mohammed H. Ahmad

At the same time that the Caribbean is a tourism haven, it is also a bio-diversity hotspot. A ‘hotspot’ is a relatively small region containing a high percentage of endemic species that are in danger of extinction. In fact, the Caribbean region is one of the “hottest hotspots” as it contains 2.3 and 2.9% of the world’s flora and fauna, respectively, on only 0.15% of the Earth’s surface (Myers et al 2000), and only 11.3% of the Caribbean’s primary vegetation remains. Nevertheless, more than 30% of the higher plant species presently in the Caribbean are endemic. These findings have prompted Conservation International to designate the Caribbean among the top 8 of the world’s 25 “hotspots” across the globe. The endemic species of Jamaica alone are an estimated 28% of the flowering plants (800 of 3000), 14% of the ferns (82 of 597), 18% of the birds (20 of 113) and 15% of the bats (3 of 20), to name a few. It is against this backdrop that journey through the Medicinal Plant Industry of the Caribbean will take place, travelling from the world-wide industry, into the Caribbean, to Jamaica, then to the University of the West Indies (UWI), the Biotechnology Centre (BTC) and finally to the activities of the Medicinal Plant Research Group (MPRG).

A Clear Human Footprint in the Coral Reefs of the Caribbean, Camilo Mora

The recent degradation of coral reefs worldwide is increasingly well documented, yet the underlying causes remain debated. In this study, we used a large-scale database on the status of coral reef communities in the Caribbean and analysed it in combination with a comprehensive set of socioeconomic and environmental databases to decouple confounding factors and identify the drivers of change in coral reef communities.

Our results indicated that human activities related to agricultural land use, coastal development, overfishing and climate change had created independent and overwhelming responses in fishes, corals and macro algae. While the effective implementation of marine protected areas (MPAs) increased the biomass of fish populations, coral reef builders and macro algae followed patterns of change independent of MPAs. However, we also found significant ecological links among all these groups of organisms suggesting that the long-term stability of coral reefs as a whole requires a holistic and regional approach to the control of human-related stressors in addition to the improvement and establishment of new MPAs.