The
CLME+ Project and Strategic Action Programme
The Caribbean and North Brazil ...
The
CLME+ Project and Strategic Action Programme
The Caribbean and North Brazil Shelf Large Marine Ecosystems
(jointly referred to as “the CLME+ region”) are bordered by over 35 States and
Territories. This vast marine area (4.4
million km2) is a major contributor to regional economic development and is key
to many globally relevant ecological processes.
Two economic drivers important to the region’s economy and which are
dependent on its marine ecosystems and associated living resources are
fisheries and tourism.
The CLME+ region is regarded as one of the most geopolitically diverse and
complex sets of LMEs in the world. The culturally diverse countries and
territories that border this maritime area range from among the largest (e.g.
Brazil, USA) to among the smallest (e.g. Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis) and
from the most developed to the least developed in the world. Both the marine
resources as well as key problems affecting these resources (overfishing,
pollution, habitat degradation and climate change) are shared to a very
large extent by the many territories that make up this region. Highly variable
progress exists across the region with regard to ocean and living marine
resources governance. Capacities for living marine resources management vary
considerably at national, sub-regional and regional levels.
A 10-year Strategic Action Programme (SAP) to reverse
environmental degradation in the CLME+ region has been endorsed at high
political levels by over twenty countries to date. The SAP puts considerable
focus on priority actions that aim at dealing with root causes of
environmental degradation such as weak governance arrangements and
capacity, and awareness and information gaps, and overall lack of coordination
of efforts, as a result of geopolitical and sectoral fragmentation at the
regional, sub-regional, national and local levels.
The UNDP/GEF Project “CLME+: Catalysing Implementation of the Strategic Action Programme for the
Sustainable Management of shared Living Marine Resources in the Caribbean and
North Brazil Shelf Large Marine Ecosystems” (GEF ID 5542; 2015-2019)
aims at facilitating the implementation of the CLME+ SAP. The project seeks to
achieve this by facilitating an ecosystem based management/ecosystem approach
to fisheries (EBM/EAF) within the CLME+ region, in such a way that a
sustainable and climate resilient provision of goods and services from the
region’s living marine resources can be secured. Given its regional and
comprehensive nature, the CLME+ Project is uniquely positioned to address the
root causes of environmental degradation, in particular the gaps and weaknesses
in transboundary and cross-sectoral
governance arrangements.