The ratification of a protocol designed to help arrest the problem of the pollution of Caribbean waters appears to be progressing full steam ahead with new countries signing the Protocol Concerning Pollution from Land-based Sources and Activities (LBS Protocol).
The signatories to date are Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Bahamas, Guyana, USA, France, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama, Grenada, and St Lucia, with others soon likely to come on board.
“Given the trans-boundary nature of pollution, it is only through a collective effort by all countries ratifying and implementing the LBS Protocol that the region’s Caribbean Sea can be safeguarded,” said Christopher Corbin, programme officer for the Assessment and Management of Environmental Pollution (AMEP) sub-programme of the United Nations Caribbean Environment Programme. According to Corbin, this is why there are still a few other countries [including the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Barbados, Colombia, and Suriname] that are close to completing the ratification process, which includes a review of the protocol to determine national obligations and consultations among stakeholders before being sanctioned by government.
“Since there is no international agreement on land-based pollution, countries who have ratified the LBS Protocol are seen to have at least political will and commitment and stand to be able to access greater technical and financial assistance from GEF projects as a result of this political commitment,” Corbin explained while encouraging others to follow suit and ratify the protocol, which is provided for under the Cartagena Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean. “Governments can receive both technical expertise and guidance as well as financial support through projects to control and reduce the negative impacts of pollution,” he indicated. “This has direct implications for protecting human health and safeguarding critical economic development opportunities in tourism and fisheries; reducing the negative impacts of pollution on coastal and marine biodiversity, such as coral reefs; [and] also allows these ecosystems to better withstand and recover from impacts of global warming and climate change.”
[. . .] Countries needing assistance in the ratification process can nevertheless be accommodated. “[There is] assistance in conducting national awareness and consultative workshops; visits by the staff of the Secretariat to meet with high-level Government officials to explain the benefits and obligations following ratification,” Corbin said. “[There are also] small pilot or demonstration projects on pollution prevention that will showcase practical benefits of ratification; facilitating personnel exchanges between countries who have already ratified and those interested in ratification,” he added, noting that these are things that were all done in the more recent countries to ratify.
Once ratified, countries are required to look at 17 categories of primary pollutants for which limitations are proposed to ensure the prevention, reduction and control of pollution from land-based sources and activities “through the establishment of effluent and emission limitations and/or the application of best management practices and most appropriate technologies”. The pollutants include lubricating oil, heavy metals, crude petroleum, cyanides, and detergents.
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