The UN Environment established the Caribbean Environment Programme (CEP) in 1981 as one of its Regional Seas Programmes in recognition of the importance and value of the Wider Caribbean Region’s fragile and vulnerable coastal and marine ecosystemsincluding endemic plants and animals.
Countries of the region then adopted the Cartagena Convention on 24th March 1983, promoting the protection and development of the marine environmentof the Region and provides the legal framework for the Caribbean Environment Programme.
It is supported by three technical agreements or protocols on oil spills, Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW) and land-based sources of marine pollution.
The SPAW protocol focuses on the following areas: marine protected areas and wildlife, threatened and endangered marine speies andmarine and coastal ecosystems, including Coral Reefs and related ecosystems.
The UN Environment CEP, and is Regional Activity Center for the SPAW Protocole (SPAW-RAC) is therefore co-chairing the Caribbean regional node of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN-Caribbean), and member of the steering committee of the Coral Restoration Consortiumcreated in 2017.
IYOR Activities Plan
Our IYOR activities will include:
- Participation and promotion to the UN Environment activities
- Implementation of the Green Finsinitiative in Dominican Republic
- Talk at the 4th WCMB to present the work of the GCRMN-Caribbean in Montreal, May 9-13
- Organization of a special technical session at the next annual meeting of the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institutes (GCFI), to be held in San Andres, Colombia, Nov 5th – 9th
