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Professor Mumby's research on the impact of parrotfish grazing on the resilience of coral reefs has had a direct impact on the management of Caribbean reefs and fisheries. The results of his research have influenced conservation policy across the Caribbean and have led to the Governments of Belize and Bonaire enacting legislation to ban fishing of parrotfish. The work has also motivated the National Marine Fisheries Service (USA) and the Caribbean Fishery Management Council (Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands) to set annual catch and size limits for parrotfish caught in US Caribbean fisheries.
Our award-winning work (Aviva/Earthwatch International Award 2006) on measuring growth of corals in relation to climate and environmental changes linked to capacity building has informed managers and policy-makers in developing countries of the measures required for an integrated system of conservation and management. In Jamaica, our research on modelling coral growth linked to discussions with local stakeholders and the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) showed that implementation of co-operative management plans can allow reef ecosystems to withstand major physical effects; these plans have been implemented. In Belize, we worked with local Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the Fisheries Department to enable them to both measure and model coral reef growth, and so develop methods for sustaining their reefs. Our work has enabled reef managers in Jamaica and Belize to monitor their reefs and they have put in place new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) so that their reefs can be protected in times of climate and environmental change. This has resulted in increased fishing yields in both countries.
Since 1994, Professor Charles Sheppard at the University of Warwick, both individually and in collaboration with others, has published key results and observational studies into the coral reefs and islands of the Chagos Archipelago, central Indian Ocean. This is a British Overseas Territory - the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), the UK's most biodiverse marine environment, comprising five atolls including the largest in the world and ten submerged atolls and banks covering 60,000 sqkm. These studies showed the marine environment there was the least impacted in the Indian Ocean, and the largest undamaged tract of coral reefs remaining in the world. It also has the worlds highest reef fish biomass, highest densities of the huge but endangered coconut crabs, and is the most unpolluted marine environment recorded in the world. Results in 250 papers to date from over 100 collaborators including several from Warwick (PhD students to Professors), provided the scientific basis for the UK Government's declaration in 2010 of the largest strictly no-take Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the world. The MPA exceeds 650,000 sqkm. The intention is to conserve this huge and globally important area in its present condition, for the benefit of the Indian Ocean countries, and to act as a scientific reference site, or baseline, for tropical studies world-wide. This declaration is a major step forward for marine conservation and food security in a region that has undergone massive decline, both in its ecological condition and ability to supply protein for inhabitants of many of the world's poorest countries.