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The Los Roques and las Aves oceanic coral reef archipelagos of Venezuela lie in a biogeographically unique area of the Caribbean and possess extensive lagoonal seagrass beds mangroves and shallow macroalgae meadows rich with sea life. These areas form part of a biogeographic unity together with Bonaire and Curaçao as part of the Leeward Antilles ridge islands. Both archipelago’s are areas of low human impact. While the Aves islands remain uninhabited and are an area of restricted fishing activity, Los Roques, has been a managed park since 1972. While both archipelago’s represent similarly rich biodiversity values, Los Roques has been much better documented than Las Aves. Los Roques is the largest coral reef marine protected area of Venezuela. It is about 157 km from Venezuela's mainland coast and covers about 225,153 ha. It is a recognized Important Bird Area (IBA) of Venezuela on account of its large seabird breeding colonies. Notwithstanding year-round habitation by about 1500 people and receiving 75 thousand visitors a year it has among the lowest levels of human ecological impact in the Caribbean and represents intact and well-connected coastal ecosystems. Recent assessments show that it also possesses exemplary fish faunas (Elise et al. 2017), that may be considered as a benchmark for overfished coral reef fish faunas throughout the region. In 2012, Los Roques was designated as a shark sanctuary on account of its documented importance as a shark nursery area. Local park management enjoys broad community support from the various stakeholders who have a convergent and largely shared vision regarding a sustainable future for the park. Thanks to effective management Los Roques has also successfully maintained its importance to seabird colonies for the last 50 years since the earlies surveys. Even though the area has been found to be vulnerable to climate change and how this appears to affect regional oceanographic processes, the geographic location of these archipelago’s, the current management regime, and which largely safeguard them from most hurricane damage, and the current management regime, have been effective in protecting the unique biodiversity and coastal ecosystems of these intact coralline island systems.

Description of the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the Proposed Marine Nomination Properties of the Bonaire and Curaçao Marine Parks (BCMP)