Abstract
For over two decades, the countries, subregional and regional level intergovernmental organizations in the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR) have been engaged in an initiative to implement a regional governance approach for managing the shared living marine resources of the Caribbean Sea and adjacent regions. Given the inherent socio-economic and geopolitical complexity of the region, this approach has been recognized as essential to address the challenges associated with the interconnected nature of shared ecosystem goods and services upon which countries in the region depend. This paper uses a retrospective lens to shed light on the challenges confronting the region and its efforts to overcome them. It is based on the Large Marine Ecosystem Governance Framework developed specifically for the WCR in 2006 and characterized as “learning by doing.” Data were obtained for this study through desktop review of published literature documenting progress over the period 2001–2021 and insights requested from 15 key individual and institutional contributors involved in the initiative. While the lack of financial resources was an underpinning and cross-cutting issue, key constraints identified were categorized as institutional, capacity building, awareness raising, leadership, legal, political, social capital, or socio-cultural. They include national capacity to engage with regional level processes due to a variety of factors including funding, political, and institutional challenges of developing a regional coordination mechanism, engaging the broader ocean community to create the critical mass needed, the difficulty of mainstreaming ocean affairs into high level political and decision-making fora and the scarcity of local, national and regional technical and political champions. This paper advances understanding of the barriers to be overcome in highly complex socio-politically developing regions if regional ocean governance initiatives are to play the essential role identified in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, reaping the sustainable benefits of a blue economy.
Highlights
Evidence supporting a regional approach for managing transboundary ocean space, especially within enclosed and semi-enclosed seas, has been growing over the past few decades (Sherman, 1999; Fanning et al, 2009; Sherman and Hempel, 2009; Chung, 2010; Rochette et al, 2015; Duda, 2016; Billé et al, 2017; Langlet, 2018; Cavallo et al, 2019)
Technical, and human support provided by an array of committed actors from multiple sectors and jurisdictional levels spanning local to global, the progress achieved to date has not been without its challenges
Of the 29 constraints identified in this paper by contributors, overcoming institutional and capacity constraints have been challenging for the region
Summary
Evidence supporting a regional approach for managing transboundary ocean space, especially within enclosed and semi-enclosed seas, has been growing over the past few decades (Sherman, 1999; Fanning et al, 2009; Sherman and Hempel, 2009; Chung, 2010; Rochette et al, 2015; Duda, 2016; Billé et al, 2017; Langlet, 2018; Cavallo et al, 2019). The benefits of countries adopting a regional approach for resolving transboundary issues, those affecting shared living marine resources (sLMRs) and for pursuing marine ecosystem-based management (EBM) have been recognized (Fanning et al, 2011). Contributing to an understanding of the current level of regional uptake to help meet these expectations, Mahon and Fanning (2019b) identified 20 regional clusters comprising governance arrangements related to EBM across the global ocean space. The authors’ assessment of the Western Central Atlantic region which comprised the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR) indicated the absence of an overarching regional integration mechanism “despite there being several regional and subregional mechanisms for fisheries and environment.” (Mahon and Fanning, 2019a, p.5)
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