Biodiversity Agreements
The Caribbean Hub's work on biodiversity centres around a cluster of multilateral environmental agreements:
- the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD);
- the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES);
- the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands;
- the Protocol concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW Protocol) of the Cartagena Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment in the Wider Caribbean Region; and
- the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing.
The principal focus of the Caribbean Hub's capacity building in this area is the mainstreaming of biodiversity into national development planning and policy-making. The CARICOM Secretariat, in conjunction with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, has published a guidance module on using integrated economic assessment tools to mainstream MEAs and improve their implementation. Several national and regional capacity-building workshops have been delivered using the module.
Participants at a national biodiversity mainstreaming workshop in Belize
The Caribbean Hub has begun work to prepare a biodiversity outlook for the region, and will be developing a biodiversity road-map for the Caribbean Community to support countries' implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020. The United Nations Environment Programme Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean is a partner in this work.
Building capacity for the effective implementation of access and benefit-sharing (ABS) in the Caribbean is also a priority for the Caribbean Hub. The CARICOM Secretariat has been requested to play a key role in facilitating, promoting cooperation, and coordinating ABS capacity development activities in the Caribbean Community, and is in the process of formulating an ABS capacity-building framework for CARICOM countries. On ABS issues, the Caribbean Hub works closely with the CBD Secretariat, the ABS Initiative, and the IUCN Regional Office for Mesoamerica and the Caribbean.
Other activites carried out by the Caribbean Hub include negotiations training, coordinating regional preparations for Conferences of the Parties to the CBD, capacity development for customs officers, economists, lawyers and project managers, promoting harmonized and streamlined reporting to the biodiversity MEAs, and general awareness raising.