Port of Spain (November 17, 2009) – The First Meeting of the Advisory Committee for the Expert-Level Seminar on Marine Management will be held on 20 November 2009 at the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica. This Expert-Level Seminar on Marine Management falls within the framework of the Caribbean Sea Commission (CSC) of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS).

The Opening Ceremony for this Meeting of the Advisory Committee will include remarks from a Representative of the Office of the Prime Minister, the CSC Chair (Barbados) and the ACS Secretariat. During the course of the day, discussions will focus on developing the Seminar’s programme and agenda, budget and resource mobilisation, potential participants, and logistical arrangements.

This Seminar on Marine Management originated from a proposal for possible cooperation between the Baltic and the Caribbean regions, which was presented during the 9th Meeting of the Caribbean Sea Commission in August 2009. This possible collaboration was proposed by the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), the governing body of the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area.

The Seminar is therefore a joint Caribbean-Baltic expert-level seminar which will be organised in Jamaica in May 2010 where the overarching theme will be “Science for Governance of Regional Seas”. It is expected that the Seminar will support the process of institutionalisation of the Caribbean Sea Commission, the networking of experts and the integration of projects/programmes in the Caribbean region. The Seminar will also present a valuable opportunity for sharing experiences of regional monitoring and reporting mechanisms and policies.

The Caribbean Sea Commission was established to carry out the strategic planning and technical follow-up work for the advancement of the Caribbean Sea Initiative of the ACS to have the Caribbean Sea declared a Special Area in the Context of Sustainable Development and to formulate a practical and action-oriented work programme for the further development and implementation of the Initiative.

Members of the Caribbean Sea Commission include: ACS Member States and Associate Members, the ACS Secretary General, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Latin American Economic System (SELA), the Central American Integration System (SICA), the Permanent Secretariat for the General Agreement on Central American Economic Integration (SIECA) and the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO). The CSC also includes two sitting Experts: Professor John Agard of the University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago, and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). Finally, the CSC has developed strategic links with the University of Havana through its Centre for Marine Investigation (CIM) and the Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (CERMES) of the University of the West Indies.