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Status of Protected Area Systems in the Wider Caribbean Region | |
| CEP Technical Report No. 36 Year | All CEP Technical Reports |
PREFACE
Coral reefs, mangroves, sea grass beds, wetlands, and other coastal and terrestrial ecosystems are under heavy stress in many countries of the Wider Caribbean Region. Threats to these and other sensitive habitats, as well as the mismanagement of living resources, are undermining the very survival of a number of plant and animal species important for achieving sustainable development in the region.
The Protocol Concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife in the Wider Caribbean (SPAW) to the Cartagena Convention, provides a comprehensive legal framework for the protection and sound management of these threatened and endangered species of regional concern and their habitats. The SPAW Protocol calls for the establishment of protected areas in order "to conserve, maintain and restore, in particular:
a) representative types of coastal and marine ecosystems...to ensure their long-term viability and to maintain biological and genetic diversity;
b) habitats and their associated ecosystems critical to the survival and recovery of endangered, threatened or endemic species;
c) the productivity of ecosystems and natural resources that provide economic or social benefits and upon which the welfare of local inhabitants is dependent; and
d) areas of special biological, ecological, educational, scientific, historic, cultural, recreational, archaeological, aesthetic or economic values..."
The Protocol also contains several provisions that include detailed protection measures for the areas, measures for the planning and management of the areas, for the listing and development of co-operation programmes for the areas, and for the establishment of common guidelines and criteria, among other things.
According to David Freestone, Managing Editor of the International Journal of Estuarine and Coastal Law, writing in Volume 5 (4), l990: "The Kingston Protocol is arguably the most comprehensive regional wildlife protection treaty in the world-it is certainly the most comprehensive of its kind. In addition to the formal annexing requirements and the institutional structure which it establishes, its provisions on environmental impact assessment, planning and management regimes, and buffer zones, as well as the range of protection measures it envisages (including species recovery plans), reflects much of the best in modern thinking on wildlife protection and management."
The main consequence of the adoption of the SPAW Protocol is the formulation and implementation of the Regional Programme for Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW). Although the SPAW Regional Programme was only formulated and developed in l980, a number of activities concerning parks and protected areas and species conservation and management have been implemented since l985 under the framework of the Caribbean Environment Programme (CEP).
The SPAW Regional Programme has developed a number of activities to assist with the implementation of the provisions of the Protocol. These activities include the development of common guidelines and criteria for the identification, establishment and management of protected areas, general guidelines for sea turtle and manatee management and national recovery plans for these species, comprehensive training programmes for trainers and protected area personnel and associated modules and manual, general guidelines for revenue generation by protected areas, assistance to coastal and marine protected areas on management issues, including the development of a marine protected area database and directory, development of common methodology and programme for monitoring coral reefs and associate ecosystems and management and conservation activities of coastal ecosystems.
More recently, the SPAW Regional Programme acts as contact point for the Wider Caribbean on the regional Agenda for Action of the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI). Additionally, programmatic linkages are currently being developed with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to assist with its implementation as appropriate through the Caribbean Environment Programme and its SPAW Regional Programme.
This report was prepared at the request of the Governments of the Wider Caribbean and in an effort to assist them in meeting the objectives of the SPAW Protocol and its SPAW Regional Programme. The report is largely based on the 1992 IUCN Publication "Protected Areas of the World: A review of national systems, Volume 4". The Regional Co-ordinating Unit (RCU) of UNEP, updated the information to the extent possible, through published and unpublished reports and consultations with all relevant Governments. The RCU recognises that there are still gaps in the information and remains committed to continue updating the information as required. In this context, comments from the Governments and organisations from the region are welcomed by the RCU, to further improve the knowledge of the region on this important subject, for the conservation of our natural resources.
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