Trinidad and Tobago - Biodiversity

Biodiversity

Being so close to continental South America, the biological diversity of Trinidad and Tobago is unlike that of most other Caribbean islands, and has much in common with Venezuela. That biodiversity is distributed through the following main ecosystems: coastal and marine (coral reefs, mangrove swamps, open ocean and seagrass beds), forest, freshwater (rivers and streams), karst, man-made ecosystems (agricultural land, freshwater dams, secondary forest), and savanna. On 1 August 1996, Trinidad and Tobago ratified the 1992 Rio Convention on Biological Diversity, and has produced a biodiversity action plan and four reports describing the country's contribution to biodiversity conservation. The importance of biodiversity to the well-being of the country's people through provision of ecosystem services was formally acknowledged.