Marine ecosystem-based management in the Caribbean : an essential component of principled ocean governance

Abstract

As a means of contributing to the success of the Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem (CLME) project and addressing the deficiencies surrounding EBM/EAF in the Caribbean, Dalhousie University and the International Ocean Institute, Nova Scotia, Canada, and Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (CERMES), at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados have acquired funding from the Nippon Foundation for 2008-2009 for a project entitled ‘Strengthening Principled Ocean Governance Networks (PROGOVNET): Transferring Lessons from the Caribbean to the Wider Ocean Governance Community’. Given its focus, the PROGOVNET Project aimed to provide needed guidance to the CLME project on EBM/EAF through the hosting of a symposium with regional experts in December 2008. The timing and outputs of this important symposium were structured so as to directly contribute to the design and implementation of CLME activities that are scheduled to begin early in 2009. The aim of the PROGOVNET symposium on ‘Marine EBM/EAF in the Caribbean’ was to produce a body of background work on EBM/EAF in various Caribbean situations, and to synthesize these ideas under strategic headings that could provide guidance to the CLME Project and other stakeholders in marine resource use with an interest in moving in this direction.