EFFICACY OF THE CURAÇAO MARINE PARK: A PLEISTOCENE PERSPECTIVE

As global climate change persists, anthropogenic impacts will continue to exacerbate current environmental degradation, particularly to coral reef ecosystems. To mitigate this critical situation, coral reef conservation efforts have focused on the development of effective marine protected areas (MPAs). However, successful ecological conservation and restoration require an understanding of previous community states – unaffected by anthropogenic impacts - to serve as a basis for comparison. This study pursues a paleoecological approach to understanding the community structure of Caribbean coral reefs prior to human impacts. Results are utilized to assess the efficacy of a developing marine protected area in Curaçao. Systematic censuses of Late Pleistocene fossil coral reefs were compared to censuses of modern reef sites within and outside the Curaçao Marine Park. The Late Pleistocene coral reefs preserve communities with a distinctly different community structure than all modern sites. Modern reefs inside the park support a different community structure, a significantly greater percent of live coral coverage, and a higher degree of similarity between sites than reefs located outside the park boundaries. Furthermore, there is a stronger geographical gradient in coral community composition among modern reefs than Pleistocene reefs. This study concludes that the nascent Curaçao Marine Park – lacking active management and definitive conservation regulations – provides some degree of protection to modern reefs within its borders. However, the degree of intentional protection by park management is questionable. Furthermore, the study illustrates the feasibility of utilizing paleoecological studies to inform issues related to marine conservation.