Purpose of the Caribbean Ecoregional AssessmentThe Caribbean is one of the worlds epicenters of biological diversity and species endemism with literally thousands of plants and animals found nowhere else on earth. Conservation has proven a challenge in this large, diverse, and globally-important area one the Nature Conservancy is addressing through a strong on-the-ground presence led by country programs that have science-based conservation strategies. To address these problems and opportunities, The Nature Conservancy initiated a Regional Conservation Assessment for the Greater Caribbean Basin, designed to examine regional biodiversity and the associated threats and conservation opportunities. This follows a worldwide trend of recognizing the need to examine about and manage for the maintenance of functioning ecosystem processes and populations across appropriately large regions to help slow widespread environmental changes. To facilitate this approach, we have assembled, into a standard, seamless GIS database, the biological and socio-economic data necessary to analyze the regional-scale context of Caribbean biodiversity.We identified and mapped a range of coarse-filter targets that represent a full spectrum of terrestrial, freshwater and marine biodiversity using combinations of biophysical factors (such as climate, geology, major habitat type, elevation, depth etc.). Mapping Caribbean biodiversity provides the basis for conservation decision making. Coarse-filter mapping at the level of ecological communities, ecosystems and landscapes is an efficient method to represent all essential elements of biodiversity across the entire region. We assessed human impact in two ways: expert judgments and mapping of the relative intensity of human impacts. Local experts provided judgments on the condition of targets and this information is combined with maps of human activities in order to determine relative human impacts. Distribution of human activities is a critical factor in conservation and resource management. Not all human activities are threats to biodiversity and determining relative human impact and predicting ecological health is necessary for sound management. We suggest that by providing the latest analytical tools and comprehensive biodiversity and socio-economic data, we can assist conservation organizations, local communities and governments that are striving to meet their national or local conservation missions and leverage and enhance ongoing conservation efforts. These data and tools can be used to enable sound, pragmatic conservation decisions at-scale. In this way, this assessment will serve to enhance and unify ongoing local and national conservation efforts and provide a common vision of conservation success throughout the Greater Caribbean. We suggest that use of the data and tools can facilitate strategic partnerships amongst both local and regional organizations across the basin a key to achieving lasting results. We hope to put in place a long-term information system that promotes the protection of the regions irreplaceable terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine biodiversity. We have designed simple data management systems to promote long-term use and dynamic updates of the database. Information is archived in a standardized structure on a freely accessible spatial warehouse using simple, robust systems that are easily and accessible to partners and stakeholders. Standardization and open access promotes updateable archiving systems so that new information can be easily integrated and compared with existing information and also facilitations information sharing and collaboration.

5th order basins of Haiti. Data derived using River Tools.

Feature class illustrating the watersheds of medium size in Haiti.

Purpose of the Caribbean Ecoregional AssessmentThe Caribbean is one of the worlds epicenters of biological diversity and species endemism with literally thousands of plants and animals found nowhere else on earth. Conservation has proven a challenge in this large, diverse, and globally-important area one the Nature Conservancy is addressing through a strong on-the-ground presence led by country programs that have science-based conservation strategies. To address these problems and opportunities, The Nature Conservancy initiated a Regional Conservation Assessment for the Greater Caribbean Basin, designed to examine regional biodiversity and the associated threats and conservation opportunities. This follows a worldwide trend of recognizing the need to examine about and manage for the maintenance of functioning ecosystem processes and populations across appropriately large regions to help slow widespread environmental changes. To facilitate this approach, we have assembled, into a standard, seamless GIS database, the biological and socio-economic data necessary to analyze the regional-scale context of Caribbean biodiversity.We identified and mapped a range of coarse-filter targets that represent a full spectrum of terrestrial, freshwater and marine biodiversity using combinations of biophysical factors (such as climate, geology, major habitat type, elevation, depth etc.). Mapping Caribbean biodiversity provides the basis for conservation decision making. Coarse-filter mapping at the level of ecological communities, ecosystems and landscapes is an efficient method to represent all essential elements of biodiversity across the entire region. We assessed human impact in two ways: expert judgments and mapping of the relative intensity of human impacts. Local experts provided judgments on the condition of targets and this information is combined with maps of human activities in order to determine relative human impacts. Distribution of human activities is a critical factor in conservation and resource management. Not all human activities are threats to biodiversity and determining relative human impact and predicting ecological health is necessary for sound management. We suggest that by providing the latest analytical tools and comprehensive biodiversity and socio-economic data, we can assist conservation organizations, local communities and governments that are striving to meet their national or local conservation missions and leverage and enhance ongoing conservation efforts. These data and tools can be used to enable sound, pragmatic conservation decisions at-scale. In this way, this assessment will serve to enhance and unify ongoing local and national conservation efforts and provide a common vision of conservation success throughout the Greater Caribbean. We suggest that use of the data and tools can facilitate strategic partnerships amongst both local and regional organizations across the basin a key to achieving lasting results. We hope to put in place a long-term information system that promotes the protection of the regions irreplaceable terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine biodiversity. We have designed simple data management systems to promote long-term use and dynamic updates of the database. Information is archived in a standardized structure on a freely accessible spatial warehouse using simple, robust systems that are easily and accessible to partners and stakeholders. Standardization and open access promotes updateable archiving systems so that new information can be easily integrated and compared with existing information and also facilitations information sharing and collaboration.