Alana Malinde S.N. Lancaster 1
2 The importance of the marine environment to the Caribbean Region
The marine environment of the WCR should be viewed as an invaluable and im-measurable resource, which has cultural, ecological, economic and spiritual signifi-cance to the region. The region extends from Florida in the north, to French Guiana in the south-east. This includes the Caribbean Sea, the Western edge of the
Atlan-cia and St Vincent and the Grenadines. The chain is ‘broken’ by the French overseas territories of Marti-nique and Guadeloupe, which lie between St. Lucia and Dominica and Dominica and Montserrat respec-tively on the Lesser Antillean chain. Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands are associate members.
13 Revised Treaty of Basseterre Establishing the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Economic Union, Gros Islet, 18 June 2010, in force 21 January 2011, available at <http://www.oecs.org/publications/
doc_download/506-revised-treaty-of-basseterre-establishing-the-oecs-economic-union> (visited 8 June 2013).
14 All full members of the OECS are also full members of CARICOM.
15 See Department of Economic and Social Affairs Statistics Division, Office of the High Representative for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, World Statistics Pocketbook 2010: Small Island Developing States, (UN, 2011), available at <http://www.unohrlls.
org/UserFiles/File/Pocketbook2010-SIDS%20full.pdf,> (visited 27 September 2013) ix
16 UNEP, Caribbean Environmental Outlook (UNEP, 2004), available at <http://www.pnuma.org/deat1/pdf/
GEO%20Carribean%20Environment%20Outlook%20Ing%202004.pdf> (visited 28 May 2013).
17 Nicole Brown, Tighe Geoghegan and Yves Renard, A Situational Analysis for the Wider Caribbean (IUCN, 2007), available at <http://data.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/2007-035.pdf> (visited 27 September 2013).
18 See below under Section 2.
tic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, which together arguably meet the definition of a ‘semi-enclosed sea’ as identified in Article 122 of UNCLOS.19
The marine environment of the WCR is extremely susceptible to influences on it.20 Accordingly, concerted efforts are required to achieve the protection of the integrity of the coastal and marine resources of the WCR. Within the WCR is the semi-enclosed Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem (CLME) – a distinct ecological region, bounded to the north by the Bahamas and the Florida Keys, to the east by the Windward Islands, to the south by the South American continent, and to the west by the isthmus of Central America. The CLME contains a substantial propor-tion of the region’s fishery resources.21
Much of the importance of marine resources to the Caribbean region is tied to the ability of states to utilise and exploit their exclusive economic zones (EEZ) as pro-vided for by UNCLOS.22 Many of the smaller islands – about 66 per cent of the CARICOM membership23 and 100 per cent of the OECS membership – are en-tirely ‘coastal’, with most economic activities and investments being centered on the coastal zone. The coastal zones are also home to approximately 75 per cent of the region’s populace.24 Most CARICOM states can peg the majority of their national wealth directly to their marine resources. In terms of Article 56 of UNCLOS, a coastal state has sovereign rights over its EEZ for the purposes of, inter alia, exploit-ing natural resources and pursuexploit-ing other economic activities (such as the production of energy). This 200 nautical mile formulation of marine delimitation under UN-CLOS25 in some instances translates into a marine environment equal to, or larger than, a country’s terrestrial area – especially for the smaller islands in the region, for which the ratio of marine to terrestrial environment can be as much as 388:1 (as in the case of Barbados).26 However, because of the close proximity of the islands in the Caribbean Sea, the issue of uncertain marine delimitations provides an ever-present threat to sustainable governance of the marine environment.27
19 Article 122 reads: ‘[f]or the purposes of this Convention, “enclosed or semi-enclosed sea” means a gulf, basin or sea surrounded by two or more States and connected to another sea or the ocean by a narrow outlet or consisting entirely or primarily of the territorial seas and exclusive economic zones of two or more coastal States’.
20 See, for example, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Major Issues in the Management of Enclosed or Semi-Enclosed Seas, with Particular Reference to the Caribbean Sea, Doc. LC/
CAR/L.24 (2004), available at <http://www.eclac.org/publicaciones/xml/1/20811/L0024.pdf> (visited 28 May 2013).
21 Lucia Fanning, Robin Mahon and Patrick McConney, ‘Focusing on Living Marine Resource Governance:
The Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem and Adjacent Areas Project’, 37 Coastal Management (2009) 219–234 at 222.
22 See Lovell, Regionalism Versus National, supra note 5.
23 With the exception of the larger island states of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and the continental states of Guyana, Suriname and Belize.
24 UNEP, Global Environmental Outlook (GEO) 5 (UNEP, 2012), available at <http://www.unep.org/geo/
geo5.asp>, Chapter 12: Latin America and the Caribbean.
25 Specifically Art’s 46–48 dealing with archipelagic states, and Art’s 55–57 dealing with the exclusive eco-nomic zone.
26 See UNEP, Caribbean Environmental Outlook, supra note 16, at 18.
27 Most of the marine delimitation in the region remains unsettled. The Treaty Between the Republic of
The benefits of utilising and harvesting the resources of the EEZ are particularly evident in two of the major industries in the region – fisheries and tourism. Ap-proximately 113 000 tonnes of fish are caught annually within the EEZs of the CARICOM Caribbean states, of which 45 per cent is consumed locally (by residents and tourists), 23 per cent is shipped to European Union territories and 30 per cent is exported to North America.28 Resources harvested include coastal pelagic fish catches, conch catches, continental shelf demersal fish catches, deep-slope and bank fish catches, lobster catches, offshore pelagic fish catches, reef fish catches and shrimp catches. There is also a variety of less important catches, such as marine mammals, sea turtles, sea urchins, and seaweeds.29 Fishing is predominantly undertaken with small crafts, with the larger states such as Belize, Guyana and Suriname practicing trawling. Concern over illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing led to the adoption of the 2010 Castries Declaration on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing30 by the Second Special Meeting of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mech-anism’s Ministerial Council.31
Relative to its size, the island population of the Caribbean is more dependent on income from tourism than that of any other part of the world, with over one-fifth (21.7 per cent) of all capital investment linked to tourism – well over twice the glo-bal average.32 Twenty-five million tourists choose to holiday in the Caribbean each year,33 in large part in pursuit of a dream of relaxation shaped by the natural features of the region – the sun, the sand and the sea – but not necessarily with concern for their impacts on other, more sensitive natural features.
Another important use of the WCR is shipping – both for commercial and non-commercial purposes.34 Cruise ships and yachts, which are both linked to the region’s tourism industry, are the main non-commercial uses. In recent times, the use of the
Trinidad and Tobago and Grenada on the Delimitation of Marine and Submarine Areas (21 April 2010, available at <http://www.gov.gd/egov/docs/other/delimitation_treaty_trinidad_tobago_grenada.pdf> (vis-ited 27 September 2013)) is one of the few boundary delimitation agreements. In addition, the OECS has established the Agreement Establishing Common Fisheries Surveillance Zones of Participating Mem-ber States of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (1 February 1991, in force 1 March 1991, available at <http://faolex.fao.org/docs/pdf/ant1087.pdf> (visited 27 September 2013)). See also Lovell, Regionalism Versus National, supra note 5.
28 Terese Maitland and Karen Morrison, Oceans and Human Health Training Course. (UWI CaveHill Campus, Barbados, 2010), available at <http://www.conservation.bm/storage/projects-pages/ocean%20
%20human%20health%20course%20UWI%20Nov%202010.pdf> (visited 27 September 2013).
29 Fanning et al, ‘Focusing on Living Marine’, supra note 22.
30 Castries Declaration on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing, Castries, 28 July 2010, available at
<http://www.caricom-fisheries.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=eeRVRXUBWGA%3D&tabid=37> (vis-ited 27 September 2013).
31 See <http://www.caricom-fisheries.com/AnnualMeetings/MinisterialCouncilMeeting/tabid/181/Default.
aspx> (visited 27 September 2013).
32 John B. R. Agard, Angela Cropper and Keisha Garcia (eds), Caribbean Sea Ecosystem Assessment, (2007), available at <http://www.thecropperfoundation.org/docs/carsea/CARSEA%20Report.pdf> (visited 28 September 2013).
33 Ibid.
34 Asha Singh and Laurence Mee, ‘Examination of Policies and MEAs Commitment by SIDS for Sustainable Management of the Caribbean Sea’, 32 Marine Policy (2008) 274–282.
marine environment has also evolved to include oil and gas exploration;35 the marine environment is additionally used as a source of potable water (after purification) in some cases,36 as well as a source of alternative energy.37