Background Paper No. 2


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 The roles of the educational and conservation affili-

ates, the Environmental Studies Program and the Virgin Is-

lands Conservation Society, are already clearly defined.

However, the relationships between the College of the Virgin

Islands, the Caribbean Research Institute and Virgin Islands

Ecological Research Station, the Bureau of Fish and Wildlife

of the Department of Conservation and Cultural Affairs, and

to a lesser degree, the United States National Park Service

are less well-defined.


 The need for definition arises out of the very real

possibility of duplication of effort with regard to: (1)

Overall research objectives; (2) Expenditures for facilities,

equipment, and field work; and, (3) Utilization of available

scientific manpower. Such overlap and duplication within the

governmental structure of a community of islands such as

these, with restricted fiscal ane human resources, cannot

easily be long tolerated. The restrictions of recent years

in federal funds available for biological research of the

kind needed in these islands makes this point abundantly

clear.


 With regard to the National Park Service, it is clear

that there are policy decisions which to a great extent lim-

it the use of their human, fiscal, and physical research re-

sources to objectives which, in effect, are directly associ-

ated with the management of the National Park. To some ex-