Over the next three months, four marine scientists from Newcastle University, will be conducting research into the coral reefs of the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Dr. Pia Schuchert, Sarah Young, Katharine Hart and Georgina Beresford are from FORCE. Future of Reefs in a Changing Environment. (FORCE),
The team has made substantial efforts to tackle a number of these issues. The FORCE project carried out extensive field studies in four Caribbean countries: Barbados, Honduras, St. Kitts and Nevis and Belize. A new project, Future of Reefs (FOR), will be extending the project to three additional Caribbean countries. Following four months in Anguilla, the team has recently arrived in the Turks and Caicos Islands, after which they will work in the Cayman Islands.
The team will be based in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and hope to have the opportunity to interview many residents. According to Force, they are interested in hearing local knowledge and perceptions of the reefs around the Turks and Caicos Islands, including their different uses and how they are managed.
The first two months of research will be spent in Providenciales, and the team will move to Grand Turk for the third month.
Community meetings will be held in the Bight and Turtle Cove at 5pm today Monday May 20th in the National Environmental Centre, and in Five Cays on Thursday May 23rd at 5pm.
The team will give an overview of the project, run workshops exploring past changes in the marine environment and help participants create their own use of maps of the area.
