The French West Indian islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe (including Désirade, Marie-Galante and Les Saintes), Saint-Barthélémy and French Saint-Martin all have coral reefs. There are two barrier reefs along the east coast of Martinique and the north coast of Guadeloupe, and other coasts have fringing reefs on the windward and leeward coasts. The small islands near Saint Barthélemy and Saint-Martin have poorly developed fringing reefs, but extensive seagrass beds on the shallow, sandy island shelf. The largest area of mangroves in the Lesser Antilles is in Guadeloupe, but these have been largely destroyed by land reclamation.



There are 834 000 people in the French West Indies and an additional 1.2 million tourists every year; thus tourism is the important economic activity based largely on ‘healthy’ coastal resources. The tourists come to use glass-bottomed boats and kayaks, go water skiing, surfing, sailing, fishing and particularly go scuba diving with one of 80 scuba clubs in Guadeloupe and Martinique. Most diving is on the Caribbean side, for example, about 100 000 divers visit the Îlets Pigeon in Guadeloupe each year. There are 3 MPAs in Guadeloupe and one each in St. Barthélemy and St. Martin, as well as several non-permanent no-take zones in Martinique.

-Many reefs have shown good recovery after the massive losses in 1998 but recovery was slowed on other reefs by fishing and other ecological factors, including COTS infestations;
-The management of coral reefs is improving with more MPAs and increased management effectiveness; and the number of non-traditional forms of MPAs, including community managed areas, are increasing;
-However there is a need for increased enforcement of existing fisheries, MPA and coastal development regulations;
-There is also a greater need for: socioeconomic monitoring to assist in increasing support to address livelihoods; increased support for research and monitoring programs; and the strengthening of national programs that address management in an integrated manner (Figure 6.1).

-Many reefs are recovering well from 1998 mass coral bleaching damage with all countries having some areas with good coral cover, and other areas with slow or little coral recovery;
-Mean live coral cover has continued to increase on some reefs of the Seychelles and Comoros, but has decreased on some reefs in Mauritius and La Réunion;
-The stresses causing low coral cover are mostly from human activities, such as trampling, pollution, chronic sedimentation and over-fishing;
-Cyclones and coral bleaching are the most important natural stresses damaging the reefs, with some bleaching recorded annually since 2000 in parts of the region;
-There is little information on the status of seagrass and mangrove areas in many countries, due to poor or no monitoring programs;
-Most countries have no active socioeconomic monitoring, and ecological and socioeconomic monitoring results are not reported regularly to reef managers;
-Recommendations include increasing efforts to reduce human impacts and increasing monitoring within and outside MPAs, especially on more remote reefs;
-Cooperation between the regional network and global or regional programs is needed to increase awareness in coastal communities of coral reef issues, and to make monitoring of coral reefs financially sustainable with regular mechanisms to feed ecological and socioeconomic monitoring results into management processes (Figure 7.1).

The U.S. Pacific Remote Island Areas (PRIAs) are nine sovereign Federal territories that straddle the equator in the central Pacific. All are single reef ecosystems that are a part of a large central Pacific biogeographic and geological province consisting mostly of ancient low reef islands and atolls (Figure 12.1; Stoddart, 1992). Six of the PRIAs are atolls or atoll reefs: Johnston Atoll (16˚N, 169˚W), Palmyra Atoll (5˚53΄N, 162˚05΄W)), Kingman Reef (6˚25΄N, 162˚23΄W), which constitute the three northernmost of the U.S. Line Islands; Rose Atoll (14˚S, 168˚W), the easternmost of the Samoan Islands; Wake Atoll (20˚N, 155˚W), the northern most of the Marshall Islands; and Midway Atoll (28˚N, 177˚W), near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian Archipelago. The remaining three PRIAs are low reef islands within one degree latitude of the equator: Jarvis Island (00˚S, 160˚W), in the central U.S. Line Islands, Howland Island (00˚18΄S, 160˚01’W); and Baker Island (00˚13΄N,, 176˚38΄W), the two northernmost of the U.S. Phoenix Islands. All except Wake and Johnston are National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and all fall under cojurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) and the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), except Johnston, which is managed by the U.S. Department of Defense, and Palmyra, which is under the joint jurisdiction of DOI, DOC, and The Nature Conservancy.

Although all nine are outside the political jurisdiction of other U.S. Pacific States and Territories (Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands [CNMI]), Rose and Midway Atolls are geographically a part of American Samoa and Hawaii, respectively. For organizational purposes, Midway Atoll is mostly treated in the chapter on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI), and Rose Atoll is partially covered in the chapter on American Samoa. Swains Island (14˚S, 168˚W), the northernmost island in American Samoa, is also a remote reef island but it is not technically a PRIA because it falls under the jurisdiction of the Territory of American Samoa.

All of the PRIAs were uninhabited at the time of their discovery by Americans and Europeans over the past two centuries, although Polynesians (and Micronesians, in the case of Wake) probably visited all of the islands periodically over many centuries to harvest fish and wildlife. The U.S. claimed most of the islands via the Guano Act of 1856. Except for Palmyra, Kingman and Rose, the PRIAs lie within arid zones of the tropical Pacific, with insufficient groundwater and rainfall to support continuous human habitation. Moreover, Kingman, lacks vegetated islets, and the land area at Rose is too small and vulnerable to storms to allow habitation. Although Palmyra is certainly capable of supporting human settlements, it is unclear as to why it remained uninhabited during recent centuries. The lack of human habitation allowed the coral reef ecosystems of the PRIAs to remain completely pristine until the early 20th century. Even today all lie beyond the influence of
urban centers, associated pollutants, and major shipping lanes.

Most of the PRIAs were materially modified during the World War II (WWII) era: the U.S. constructed and occupied military bases at Johnston, Palmyra, Wake, Midway, and Baker, while Kingman, Jarvis, and Howland were also briefly occupied or utilized during the war era. With the closure of the military base at Johnston in early 2004, only Wake Atoll remains an active U.S. military base. The seven NWRs in the PRIAs were established between 1924-2001, and all are presently no-take island and marine protected areas (MPAs) except Palmyra, on which limited catch and release sport fishing for bonefish and offshore pelagic catch for local consumption are allowed.

Ocean currents transport and distribute larvae among and between different atolls and islands, and particularly in the Pacific equatorial region, define sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and available nutrient regimes. The North Equatorial Current (NEC), Equatorial Counter Current (ECC), Equatorial Undercurrent or Cromwell Current (EUC), and South Equatorial Current (SEC) provide the mechanism by which many species are distributed among the PRIAs, nearby central Pacific islands, the main Hawaiian Islands (MHI), as well as other distant regions.

Overall Conditions and Summary of Analytical Results

NOAA, USFWS, Bishop Museum, and other scientists and volunteers have now completed species inventories (including many new records) and assessments and initiated monitoring of reef fishes and corals using several complementary underwater survey techniques at most of the PRIAs: the U.S. Line and Phoenix Islands, Johnston Atoll, and Rose Atoll. Based on the inventories, assessments, and monitoring thus far, several summary statements can be made:

• Based on the fish assemblage composition surveyed from 2000-2004, coral reef ecosystems of the PRIAs appear to remain quite healthy and productive.

• Levels of unauthorized fishing around the U.S. Line and Phoenix Islands are unknown, but believed to be negligible to light. Overall, reef fish assemblages at these islands appear to be basically healthy, with large apex predators common.

• There is presently no known harvesting for the coral and live reef fish/species trades in these islands.

• Substantial COTS predation on corals has been observed at Kingman and Palmyra but appears low elsewhere in the PRIAs.

• High densities of small planktivorous fishes found along the west side of the equatorial islands (Jarvis, Baker, Howland) were associated with upwellings caused by impingement of the EUC.

• Coral larvae transported in ECC from the western Pacific may be responsible for the substantially higher levels of coral species diversity at Palmyra and Kingman.

• Surveys conducted at Kingman in 2004 suggest an apparent decline in large fish densities (e.g., gray reef sharks, jacks, groupers) from earlier years.

• Abandoned WWII material, military construction, occupation, and ship groundings continue to be sources of stress, alien species, and perhaps coral disease to resident reef ecosystems.

• Although uninhabited atolls and islands s erve as important minimally-disturbed refuges, they are also vulnerable to unauthorized fishing and collecting due to the lack of on-site surveillance and enforcement.

The eastern portion of the Samoa Archipelago consists of five high volcanic islands and, in the east, Rose Atoll. It is an unincorporated territory of the USA, and its administration also covers Swains Atoll, a remote atoll which lies between the main islands and those of Tokelau to the north. The high islands are surrounded by fringing reefs, with reef flats typically 50-500 meters wide terminating in a reef slope which drops sharply for 3-6 meters and then descends gradually down to a depth of about 40 meters.

There are small areas of mangrove on Tutuila and Aunu‘u. The reef rim of Rose Atoll is dominated by coralline algae. It has an important green turtle nesting colony, and having been cleared of rats is also a thriving seabird colony. Swains Atoll lies at sea level, but there is a circular island on the reef flat completely enclosing the brackish atoll lagoon. There is a small population of some 50 people on the island.

The vast majority of the rapidly growing population of American Samoa lives on the southern shores of Tutuila. Although fisheries are very important, changes in the economy have meant that there is less reliance on subsistence fishing than in the past. About 150 tons of reef fish and invertebrates were taken by subsistence and small-scale artisanal fisheries in 1994, and overfishing has been shown to occur on Tutuila Island. There are further problems arising from land-derived sediments and pollutants. Although there is sewage treatment in the main population centers there are still some nutrient inputs from sewage in these areas and elsewhere. There are two tuna canneries which used to add considerable amounts of nutrients to Pago Pago harbor. These inputs have now been substantially reduced with the construction of a treated waste disposal pipe further offshore, and the dumping of high nutrient waste at some 8 kilometers distance. The coastline on Tutuila has been heavily impacted by road building and construction, and nesting turtles have largely stopped using the area.

Socioeconomic monitoring is conducted in Fiji, Samoa and Solomon Islands. Greatest activity is by the Fiji Locally Marine Managed Area (FLMMA) network at 270 villages across all Fiji provinces. Most households harvest marine resources for subsistence and partially for sale, with few commercial fishers. In Samoa, more people eat canned fish than fresh fish, possibly because of decreased fish stocks in the last 10 years. In the Solomon Islands, some traditional managed systems have collapsed due to poor understanding of fisheries and resource management issues or poor national regulations. Mangrove destruction and greater fishing pressure are reducing family incomes;

Reef related ecosystems (mangroves and seagrass) are considered important for food security, biodiversity conservation and coastal protection but less so for tourism. Seagrasses are important feeding grounds for turtles which have great traditional significance;

Reefs continue to play an integral part in the lives of the people of the South Pacific where coastal communities depend on them for subsistence, coastal protection and income generation. Most of the South West Pacific economies are dependant to a large extent on coral reefs, especially through the tourism sector, as detailed in the ESCAP statistical yearbook for Asia and the Pacific, 2007.

Coral reefs support the livelihoods of Polynesian populations through subsistence fishing in all countries and through tourism and black pearl industries in French Polynesia and the Cook Islands;