Title: The Climate Change Reality
By: Melissa Gerrard
Transcript:
On September 8th 1988, Hurricane Gilbert developed from a tropical wave east of Barbados steadily intensifying. Gilbert wreaked havoc throughout the Caribbean in the Gulf of Mexico for 9 whole days making landfall in several countries and causing extreme damage. For the small island state of Jamaica, impacts from Hurricane devastating in many ways notion most notably in regards to the coral reefs. Significant destruction to the ecologically important corals along to make its coastline occurred serving as an unexpected awakening to individuals and communities who rely heavily on the coral reef ecosystems to cultivate their livelihood. Climate change is manifesting in many ways in coastal Jamaica apart from more intense and frequent storm events, as demonstrated by hurricane Gilbert, coral bleaching, ocean acidification, increasing ocean temperatures and sea level rise are quite common. “The sea limits are increased. Right? Now the waves are much bigger than what they used to be.” In addition, the climate, marine biodiversity, overfishing and irresponsible resource management are compounding with climatic changes to place severe stress on the local marine ecosystems. This now begs the question is this fundamentally broken ecosystem enough? Does it provide an ecological bases resilient to change and able to support the local population and the resource demands? Stemming from the impacts climate change is exerting on Jamaica’s marine environment. Significant changes have been seen in the fishing industry including a noticeable decline in the biodiversity in population of the fish stocks as well as the subsequent reduction in the catch made by local fishermen. “You would see fires. Roasting fires for roasted fish. All along the beach. People would just eat the turbot like it was good. And couldn’t eat all of them. Because it doesn't sell. But when the fish stock begin to go down, then of course you know people begin to start selling. Because the target fish is getting less. So the fish that you didn't use to sell: the turbot fish, angelfish, doctor fish and surgeons. We didn’t used to sell them, we used to give them away but now they are sold.” This reduction in fish stocks leads to several negative implications for the social and economic wellbeing of the coastal communities that rely heavily on fisheries based income. This driven local fishermen to increasingly extreme measures to catch the limited fish that are left, including compressor diving and venturing very far off shore to remote areas. There is however a significant work being undertaken in Jamaica to increase community resiliency and provide means to which to better adapt to the inevitable change taking place in our world. Fish sanctuaries are good example of this community based adaptation work as they provide an opportunity for ecological conservation of the marine environment as well as alternative livelihoods for community members. It's clear that working towards starting a fully functioning and resilience ecosystem with all of its fundamental components present and working together should be a key goal as illustrated here by marine biologist Andrew Ross. “In the presence of coral, baby fish will come in from the phantom and they'll get into the coral. And inside of that coral picket, they’ll be safe. They'll grow and they'll come up and eventually go off and do fish stuff. In the absence of that coral, if that coral was dead or gone or broken, and it’s supposed to be there, the second that little fish comes into the area, a larger fish will eat ‘em. So in the absence of that fish, as the slightly bigger fish, the snails and the worms will eat all of the coral. So those two things are working together you need to have the fish in order to have the coral. Then you also need to have the coral to have the fish.” Only when we move away from over use of a fundamentally broken ecosystem and invest the time and effort to restore a vibrant and resilient marine ecology in its place will we be able to achieve a sustainable present and future. It is clear that there is much work left to be done. My name is Melissa Gerrard and thanks for tuning in to the climate change reality.