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The Centre for
Marine Sciences was established as an independent research
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centre at the University of the West
Indies,Mona Campus, in Jamaica in the
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early 1990s.
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The mission
statement gives the Centre the mandate to operate at
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the national and regional levels.
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The capacity
that has been jointly developed by the CMS and
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CPACC is a step
towards ensuring that coral reef monitoring
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activities can
be initiated and sustained at the national level,
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despite the
initial shortages of the necessary human capacity
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and material
resources..
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The CMS can
provide technical support until a a
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national
government can either allocate resources,
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or sees the
benefit of allocating scarce resources.
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This is
important because project time frames and priorities
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do not
necessarily coincide with national time frames and
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priorities,
despite commitments made at higher levels.
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The CMS provides
the quality control and quality assurance
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necessary to
ensure that data collected by different teams at
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different
geographic locations across the region,
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is consistent, accurate and comparable.
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Provides the
archiving facility to ensure the proper handling,
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storage and
retrieval of data (not used means abused in most cases).
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The CMS will
play the lead role in developing regional and national reports on the impacts
of GCC to coral reefs and the implications for sustained economic development
in the region. The CMS will communicate the information directly to national
governments and and indirectly through national and regional climate change
institution as CPACC, IMPACC and National Climate Change Committees
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