Center for Marine Resource Studies
USA
St. John, USVI, 1985-1989
Turks & Caicos Islands
South Caicos Island, 1990-present
The first SFS program in marine biology took place in the summer of 1981 on Little Cayman Island but by 1983 had shifted to St. John, USVI. The actual Center for Marine Resource Studies (CMRS) opened on St. John at the Virgin Islands Environmental Resource Station on Lameshur Bay in the Spring of 1985 as one of two new semester-length programs offered by SFS. Shortly after the students' arrival for the final semester on St. John, the Virgin Islands were devastated by Hurricane Hugo. Students and faculty were safely evacuated to a local shelter but from that point forward, the program content was dominated by the impact of the storm. Thanks to baseline data collected over the several years prior, the last group of SFS students on St. John was able to conduct detailed evaluations of hurricane damage to local reefs and seagrass beds for use by the National Park Service.
That same fall, SFS had completed its planned acquisition of a small hotel on South Caicos Island to which the Center for Marine Resource Studies was relocated. The purchase of this new campus provided SFS-CMRS with operational stability and a permanent home. Funds from the Laurance S. Rockefeller Foundation were used to upgrade the center's research equipment and to award scholarship assistance.
When SFS arrived on South Caicos exports of conch and lobster had dropped dramatically in recent years and a major focus of early research was to identify causes of and possible solutions to this decline. Additional areas of study focused on marine habitat mapping and the development of a species list for a proposed park offshore to the Center, which the TCI government designated the Admiral Cockburn Land and Sea National Park in 1992.
Today, conch and lobster have recovered and are considered to be sustainable fisheries thanks to effective regulations, the system of marine protected areas and, in part, to the efforts of numerous groups of SFS students and faculty. The question remains, for how long? The largest looming threat for South Caicos today is an anticipated large increase in recreational tourism- primarily based on reef diving and sport fishing. There are currently three large tourism developments under construction on South Caicos with a potential bed capacity of over 1000. In approximately one to three years when these developments open for business, the presently more or less stable state of affairs in and between the marine and on-shore terrestrial environments and the civil society of the community will experience significant change. Development of a sustainable tourism industry requires that on- and off-shore environments of the island remain healthy so that they can continue to support the traditional subsistence and commercial fishing industry as well as an evolving beach and marine-focused tourism industry that will bring new employment and entrepreneurial opportunities. The primary goal of the current SFS-CMRS five-year research plan is to assist our clients, partners and stakeholders in maintaining and enhancing current conditions of marine resources around South Caicos, and in finding a sustainable balance between the positive and negative impacts of tourism development.