Advancing the Nagoya Protocol in Countries in the Caribbean Region: Trinidad and Tobago National Workshop

On April 28^th, 2016 at the Trinidad Hilton & Conference Centre, local stakeholders (UTT, UWI, Ministry of Legal Affairs, EMA, Ministry of Planning and Development and others) gathered together at the "Advancing the Nagoya Protocol in countries in the Caribbean Region" Project - Trinidad and Tobago National Workshop.

In order to support countries of the Caribbean to capitalise on opportunities to make the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (ABS Protocol) operational in their national jurisdictions, the UNEP in collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has developed a  Caribbean Regional Project entitled "Advancing the Nagoya Protocol in countries of the Caribbean Region".  

This 3 year Project is to be implemented in 8 CARICOM countries including Trinidad and Tobago with grant funding from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and is being executed by the IUCN Regional Office for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean (ORMACC). 

Matters discussed at the Workshop included:

• ABS and the Nagoya Protocol;
• ABS in the Caribbean Region;
• The IUCN ABS Caribbean Project;
• The Project Work Plan for Trinidad and Tobago;
•  The role of National Agencies in Project Implementation 

>> For more information on the Project and the Trinidad and Tobago National Workshop visit the Nagoya Protocol Regional Project Page.

Dr. David Persaud addresses attendees at the Trinidad and Tobago National Workshop on April 28th, 2016.

IUCN/TNC Scientific Forum on the BIOPAMA Programme

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Nature Conservancy (TNC) are the two largest global NGOs which have the conservation and protection of biological resources as their core role. Together they have collaborated on the Biodiversity and Protected Area Management Programme (BIOPAMA) for African, Pacific and  Caribbean (ACP) states, the main aim of which is to establish a database on Protected Areas (PAs).  

This Scientific Forum, which was held between February 19 – 21^st, 2014 in St. Lucia, was intended to familiarise the Caribbean sub-region on the objectives of the BIOPAMA programme and to inform on its utility by providing  information on available tools for the management of protected areas. 

Two representatives from the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources attended the Scientific Forum. They included Mr. Julius Smith, Environmental Biologist in the Environmental Policy and Planning Division, along with Rhona Jitta, Assistant Conservator of Forests (Ag.), Forestry Division.

The Forum provided an opportunity for the IUCN/TNC to assess the capabilities of the Caribbean States in terms of  Protected Area management, monitoring and enforcement as well as their availability to participate in the BIOPAMA initiative.  The second part of the Forum focused on working group sessions that sought to get the participants to formulate projects that would assist BIOPAMA in carrying out its mandate.   

These sessions sought to solicit information from Caribbean states regarding how data is currently being used, existing data gaps, impediments to the acquisition of data, the accessibility of available data and the administrative bottlenecks to data management as well as decision making based on the use of geospatial data.