Spatial - Ecological Assessment ofLand-use / Land-cover: Agriculturally-disturbed "Tropical Moist Forest(Cool Dry Transition)" in the Caparo River Valley, Republic of Trinidad& Tobago

Authors: Karl Ramjohn, Floyd B. Lucas, Carol L. Ramjohn & Winston Johnson, Tropical Environment Research & Management Center, Trinidad & Tobago. January 2006

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ECOSYSTEMCLASSIFICATION & FUNCTIONAL DYNAMICS

Beard(1946) classified the study area as being predominantly Seasonal Evergreen Forest (mixed Crappo-Guatecare). Beard’s study (which remains as the onlycomprehensive ground-based island-wide assessment of flora) focussed on classificationsbased on dominants within the community, mainly from an economic timber andForestry management perspective. Those classifications represent conditions ~60years ago, and several of the species assemblages described by Beard (1946) areno longer recognizable, having undergone significant alterations, fragmentationand conversion into secondary forest and other land-uses (Ramjohn et al.2001, Joseph 1999, Nelson 1999).

A more recent study by Nelson(2004), which attempted classification of indigenous forests based on alandscape-ecology and ecosystem-management perspective, delineated Trinidad into two majorterrestrial eco-regions – Dry Forest and Moist Forest. According to thatstudy, the project site (confluence of the Caparo andMamoral Rivers) is locatedapproximately on the boundary between the two eco-regions; thus it may beregarded as being within a transition zone between two significant moistureregimes. Based on maps prepared by Nelson (2004), the middle and upper reachesof the Caparo Basin would be in thewetter region supporting “Tropical Moist Forest”, with the lower catchment in the drier region classified as “Tropical Moist Forest, Cool DryTransition”.

The long history of agriculturalactivity in the Caparo Valley has resulted insignificant alterations to the native vegetation and forests. In general,higher-quality closed-canopy forest remains only as a few patches in this area(Nelson 2004). These forested remnants largely persist on the higher slopes ofthe occasional spurs and ridges, such as the area immediately north of theproject site. The higher-integrity forest remnants persist as patches embeddedin a wider (macro-habitat) matrix of cultivated areas, grassland/lastro and secondary forest. As a result of the traditionalland-use patterns, much of the vegetation resources in the immediate vicinityof the confluence are of agricultural origin. Therefore, while natural andsemi-natural vegetation exists in the surrounding area, the agronomic aspectsof the biological environment will have a more dominant role in defining thesite’s ecological character.

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