by David Williams, BBC Caribbean.com Bridgetown, Barbados
Ask any citizen of the Greater Caribbean, from the Caribbean Community (Caricom) states to Central America, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela, if they consider the Caribbean Sea 'special' and worth protecting, and the answer will almost certainly be a prompt and resounding 'yes'.
But the formal process of having the United Nations recognise the Caribbean Sea as a special sustainable development area, ahead of more than 60 other large marine ecosystems in the world, is infinitely more complex than expressing sentimental notions about how much the people of the region love sea-baths, seafood, and beach cricket.
The process is being spearheaded by the Trinidad-based Association of Caribbean States (ACS), and aims at developing long-term coastal and marine management programmes for this shared environmental resource.
This will require practical co-operation among the 25 ACS member states, and also that international states respect the special area status, if it is granted by the UN.
Easier said than done.
Optimism
Despite the complexity of the task at hand, there’s much optimism within the Caribbean Sea Commission, the ACS body charged with promoting the preservation and sustainable use of the Caribbean Sea, about how successfully it can navigate the largely uncharted waters of this process which the Association started almost a decade ago.
Policy makers, legal experts, scientists, and diplomats met recently in Barbados for the Commission’s 7th meeting, to prepare an important report on the issue for presentation to the UN General Assembly in September.
It’s the critical follow-up action to the UN’s adoption two years ago of a resolution entitled: 'Towards the Sustainable Development of the Caribbean Sea for present and future generations'.
The Secretary General of the ACS, Ambassador Luis Fernando Andrade Falla, says the case for special protection of the 1.02 million square miles of Caribbean Sea is even more compelling in an era of climate change.
Climate change threat
Indeed, climate change is the single biggest threat facing Caribbean marine and coastal resources today and for the future.
"Climate change is not a speculation nowadays. Scientifically it has been proven. There is evidence that this region in particular has suffered annually more (of) the negative effects of climate change," he said.
This focus on climate change represents a major shift from what was once the most high-profile environmental threat to the Caribbean Sea, i.e. the international shipping of nuclear waste through the region.
'Zero accidents'
Since the 1990s such shipments from France and the United Kingdom have evoked outrage in the region for the unspeakable devastation which could flow from an accident or act of terrorism.
During the public discussion that followed the Caribbean Sea Commission meeting in Bridgetown, the French Ambassador to Caricom, Jean-Paul Dupont, tried to give reassurances on the issue.
His observation that the nuclear shipments are conducted under 'strict regulation' with a track record to date of 'zero accidents' was, however, cold comfort.
The threat from nuclear transhipments, while still a concern, is now somewhat de-emphasised in the overall picture given the multiplicity of other serious hazards.
Internal threats
Barbadian coastal management specialist, Dr. Leonard Nurse, reminds that not all the threats to Caribbean Sea originate externally.
"In a sense we can be our own worst enemies," said Dr. Nurse, who was part of the United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
"One of the things that we need to think about very much in configuring an approach to managing the Caribbean Sea sustainably and getting the resolution through the UN system is the recognition that there is a lot that we need to do ourselves in the region."
There’s still work to be done, he says, in tackling land-based sources of sea pollution like poor waste management, failure to control sediment in run-off, and inadequate regulations for use of industrial, and even some common domestic chemicals.
Although these home-grown hazards threaten just as significant and long-lasting impacts on the marine environment, enough is still not being done within the region to address them.
Dr. Peter Schumann, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina has a partial explanation for this deficiency.
Dr. Schumann says an insufficient appreciation of the economic cost of ecosystem degradation in the Caribbean is to blame for a lot o f the destructive pressure being placed on the environment.
'Develop versus conserve'
There is a need, he argues, for more studies quantifying both the economic and non-economic value of the environment in the region, which would allow for better-informed decisions on resource use.
"Valuation sends a signal. It reminds everyone that although the environment is 'free', this in no way means it is not valuable," he explained.
"In cases of 'develop versus conserve', the 'develop' side almost always presents a monetary figure as justification.
It’s easy for policy makers to favour such actions when the environmental costs of development are largely unknown because they have not been measured."
Part of the challenge will also be to ensure that the wide range of stakeholder interests are represented in developing and implementing coastal and marine conservation programmes.
Breaking new ground
And according to Professor Robin Mahon, who heads the University of the West Indies Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (CERMES), a networking approach using existing environmental organisations in the region may be the best way of achieving this.
That’s because the region doesn’t have the luxury of a 'nice, neat, off-the-shelf' approach in setting up a broad-based governance framework.
"We are going to have to look at approaches that are new, we are going to have to be prepared to try them, and we are going to have to be prepared to learn and adapt as we go along, because we’re going to be breaking new ground."
Add to the mix thorny legal considerations, often with as much politics attached as law, that come into play in the region’s dense network of maritime boundaries.
Winston Anderson, a legal scholar with the Caribbean Law Institute Centre, says there are already hints of the familiar tension between sovereign interests and the spirit of co-operation.
"Whereas most states in the region wish to impose special measures for protecting and preserving the Caribbean Sea, major maritime states, some represented in our regional arrangements are hostile to any such designation that could adversely affect their rights and interests."
So why the unmistakable optimism at the ACS in the face of this confluence of environmental, social, economic, legal, and political issues swirling around the Caribbean Sea initiative?
Ambassador Falla says there is a definite 'positive momentum' surrounding the process given the progress made in recent years.
And with broad input from technical experts in many disciplines, including Caribbean sons Dr. Leonard Nurse, and Dr. John Agard, who worked on the Nobel Prize winning UN climate change panel, he’s confident the Caribbean’s case to the UN to be well-researched and just as well articulated.
"We are going to present at the UN very strong evidence, a very coherent approach, of how 25 member countries will benefit (from) the creation of this special zone, and get more resources.
It’s not just a resolution. We need resources from the international community. We are underdeveloped countries.
There are millennium (development) objectives that were agreed at the beginning of the century and this climate change issue is affecting the potential for development and the crucial resources of the region."
He says the harsh realities facing countries washed by the Caribbean Sea are strong enough to compel the good faith among ACS member states to pursue and maintain this sustainable development initiative.
"When there is empirical evidence, objective evidence, political leaders have no choice but to face realities," the Ambassador reasons.
But whether it will be enough to ensure that members of the international community respect the environmental sanctity of the Caribbean Sea, when exercising rights of access to, and through it, is another matter.