# Presentation: 245968

## The CLME Project: Governance for Caribbean Living Marine Resources

- Lucia Fanning, Robin Mahon, Patrick McConney, Bertha Simmons
- Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies
- UWI, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados

- IOC-IUCN-NOAA-UNEP Large Marine Ecosystem
- 8th Consultative Committee Meeting
- UNESCO, Paris
- July 3-4, 2005

## Presentation Outline

- The Caribbean and its living marine resources
- Status of the CLME Project
- Finding an appropriate governance framework for Caribbean living marine resources

## The Caribbean Region is geographically and politically highly diverse and complex

**Geopolitical**** **
**– ****33 states**
**Cultural**
** – ****race, language**
**Size**** **
**	****– ****smallest to largest**
**Development**** **
**	****– ****poorest to most wealthy**

- Hypothetical EEZs

## The living marine resources of the Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem are the basis for much of the region’s economy

## Caribbean Fisheries

- Reef fishes
- Coastal pelagics
- Conch
- Lobster
- Shrimp
- Snapper/grouper complex
- Flyingfish
- Large pelagics

## Caribbean fisheries

**Small, widely-scattered landing sites**
**Small, open, outboard engine powered boats**
**Fish traps, diving, seine, long lines, etc.**

**National fisheries are generally a mosaic of small, low-value resources**
**Many are multispecies**
**Many are transboundary**

## Status of living marine resources

**Fisheries**

**Non-extractable**

- Most resources fully or overexploited
- Most resource assessment effort into lobster, conch, shrimp
- Ocean-wide large pelagics assessed by ICCAT
- Regional large pelagics unknown

- Extent of healthy coral reefs around the region in decline
- Associated biodiversity under threat
- Critical coastal habitat in decline
- Coastal & marine protected areas inadequate

## Approaches by governments and organisations to reversing the trends in degradation have been largely piecemeal and nationally and regionally uncoordinated

## Marine resource management record is poor

**Management tools have either not been implemented or have failed**

**Small states have blindly followed large country management approaches**

**Focus has been on the fishing resource, ignoring trophic linkages and the environment **

## Pressure for change in Living Marine Resource Governance is growing:

** ****Increased pressure from non-fishery stakeholders**

**Pressure for change in Living Marine Resource Governance is growing:**

**Internal – national/regional**

**External**

** ****Fisheries based**

** ****Non-fisheries**

- HIGHLY MIGRATORY & STRADDLING FISH STOCKS AGREEMENT

## CLME Project

**CLME Project**

**25 GEF-eligible countries**
**19 associated territories of France, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States of America**

**PDF-B Funding:**
**GEF - US $700,000**
**Partners – US $213,000**
**Full Project – First 5 years:**
**GEF – US $9M**
**Partners – about US $10M**

## Overall objective

**Sustainable management of the shared living marine resources of the Caribbean LME and adjacent regions through an integrated management approach that will meet WSSD targets for sustainable fisheries**** **

**The Caribbean LME Project**
**What is it?**

## Technical focus on transboundary living marine resource management

**Migratory resources**
**Resources with transboundary distribution as adults **
**Resources with transboundary larval dispersal**
**Dispersal of pathogens, pollutants, invasive species**
**Transboundary trophic linkages **

**Both exploited and non-extractable**

**The Caribbean LME Project**

## The Caribbean LME Project

**The Caribbean LME Project**

**Identify, analyze and agree upon major issues, root causes and actions required to achieve sustainable management of the shared living marine resources**
** **
**Improve the shared knowledge base**
** **
**Implement legal, policy and institutional reforms**
**Develop an institutional and procedural approach to LME level monitoring, evaluation and reporting **
** **

** **
**TDA and SAP, preliminary in PDF-B, revisited after 5 years**
** **
**Research to fill gaps and systems for sharing**
**Governance mechanisms in place**
** **
**FAO, UNEP, IOC??**

## The PDF-B Process

-  Information gathering by task groups: transboundary issues; science needs, governance mechanisms
-  Preliminary TDA and SAP synthesis
-  Prepare full project brief for GEF

-  Establish Project Office (CERMES)
-  Establish Regional Steering Committee
-  Conduct national consultative activities

## Emphasis on governance processes

- But, it recognises the pivotal role of marine science in putting governance on a strong and defensible footing

**Caribbean LME Project**

**Notes:**
The most pressing rationale for a focus on governance at the regional scale lies in the many transboundary oceanographic and ecological linkages within the Wider Caribbean. With many marine resources being shared, it can be expected that there will be emphasis on transboundary or shared living marine resources which require cooperation for governance. This must include both exploited and non-exploited resources and their critical habitats. Another reason is that a regional approach will facilitate the use of limited capacity within the region.

## Living marine resource governance 

**Living marine resource governance **
**Iterative process -- needs constantly being redefined**

## Emphasis on governance

- Is a demand driven approach
- Emphasises learning by doing
- Requires partners with cofinancing to achieve shared objectives

## Governance

**What does it mean?**
**The steering mechanisms which a society uses to ensure its persistence**

| Modes of governance | Role of the ‘governor’  | Role of citizens  | Forms of  control  | Normative basis for rule setting  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Hierarchical
 | Implementation  | Subject | Rules | Will of the people |
| Distributed/Networked | Mediator  | Member of interest group  | Negotiation | Consensus |
| Self-governing  | Setting framework  | Co-producer | Self-regulation | Self-development |

**Notes:**
The ability to get things done, without necessarily having the legal competence to command that they be done.
governance is used throughout this brief to refer to the development of governing styles in which the boundaries between and within the public, private and civil sectors of society have become blurred. This is in stark contrast to government, which is used to describe the formal institutional processes operating at the national and sub-national levels of a state to maintain public order. Thus distributed governance refers to a mode of social co-ordination in which patterns of relationships emerge, rather than being crafted, and which provide the opportunity for affected parties to share information and participate collectively in the process of steering and learning. It should be clear that, for the purposes of this discussion, governance is more encompassing and as such is not synonymous with government, which can exist, despite its level of effectiveness. 

## Factors affecting choice of governance regime

**Existing policy and principles**
**Stakeholders and their interactions**
**Institutional arrangements **
**Analytical capacity of the stakeholders**
**Resource ****scale ****(size, location, duration)**
**Value of resource**

**Notes:**
Factors are contextual, substantive and procedural.

## Possible Fisheries Governance Mechanisms 

**Hierarchical with large regional fishery management organisation???**

**Support and enhance existing efforts and networking???**
**'Strengthening by doing'**

**Notes:**
Using a range of key exploited and non-extractable transboundary resources, the project will customize the modular assessment framework illustrated above to advance knowledge on the suitability of differing governance mechanisms to sustainably manage each of these resources within the region. The differing approaches will likely range from those including a small number of sub-regional sectoral actors to a more inclusive region-wide network governance approach. Potential resource categories to test this adaptive, “learning-by-doing” approach could include: the large pelagics, shrimp, flyingfish, lobster, conch, coral reefs, sea birds and marine invasives. As illustrated in the diagram below, the geographic ranges of the pilots present the opportunity to explore both regional and sub-regional governance mechanisms, supported by sound science-based information obtained from the customized modular assessments.

## Governance approach for other resources 

**Corals (and associated species), seabirds, cetaceans**
**Much less clear, as there are fewer precedents**
**Role for UNEP/IOCARIBE/FAO to provide a technical forum**
**Need to address issue of appropriate political forum**

## CLME living marine resources governance framework

- Interventions need to be within a governance framework that allows the most appropriate governance regimes to be selected
- Developing such a framework is not easy
- Requires interdisciplinary communication and willingness on the part of all stakeholders, particularly governments

- These are some of the challenges that the
- PDF-B stage of CLME project will be addressing

## Thank you