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Large marine mammals do not respect borders, and during their long migration across the Caribbean, they travel through protected marine areas where their protection is more or less well assured, or not at all.
Ideally, to improve their protection, we need to ensure the preservation of these large animals between the various territories as they pass through by setting up a harmonized transboundary management scheme.
Thus, the Life Web Project, organized by CAR-SPAW, took place in San Juan from April 23rd to 25th, 2014. It is the United Nations and the government of Puerto Rico’s environmental program, and it brought together experts from numerous regions that are concerned by these large animals. Romain Renoux, who represented Saint-Martin and the Agoa Sanctuary, was elected chairman of the meeting.
He worked on defining programs for cooperative protection of marine mammals, along with representatives from Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Barbados, St. Lucia, Guadeloupe, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, the Netherlands Antilles, the British and American Virgin islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Costa Rica. Boston and Canada were also represented as these large mammals frequent their waters in the summer.
The meeting ended positively, that is to say that the protection of marine mammals is moving in the right direction in the Caribbean, and more and more territories have realized the necessity to preserve them. Specific proposals were made, such as to create sanctuaries or to reduce the impact of human activity (noise, pollution, fishing ...). All that remains today is for the participating nations to turn these proposals into a reality by putting them into action in their territorial waters.
