Saint Vincent and Grenadines - Grenadines Island Group

The Grenadines are a group of 35 small islands located between Grenada and St. Vincent in the Windward Islands of theLesser Antilles. They stretch over a distance of 90 km from the Island of London Bridge in the south to Bequia in the north. The natural boundary of the site is approximate to the Grenadine Shelf, which is some 50m deep and falls off steeply into the Tobago Trough. Geologically, the area lies along the interface of theCaribbeanand South American Tectonic plates. Several active undersea mounts (e.g. Kick’em Jenny) attest to the ongoing movement of these plates The international boundary between Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines runs east to west across the bank between Petit Martinique and Petit St. Vincent. Nonetheless, the linkages among all the Grenadine Islands on both sides of the boundary are historically strong and continue to be active. Fishing, informal trade, tourism and island social life proceed with little attention to the boundary. In both countries ‘mainlanders’ concede that the connections among the Grenadine islands are in most cases stronger than those with the main island. Efforts by these two countries to conserve coral reef biodiversity can be seen as contribution to reef biodiversity conservation at the regional level.