Minister of Agriculture Senator Haynesley Benn, wants the General Assembly of the United Nations to designate the Caribbean Sea as a special area within the context of sustainable development.Benn, speaking at the opening of the International Ocean Institute’s Training Module: Law of the Sea and Principled Ocean Governance at the UWI Shell Suite, said such designation recognised that the Caribbean Sea was difficult to manage as a single large marine ecosystem, mainly because it was impacted by many diverse stakeholders from within and outside the region.“It is my fervent hope that the UN will take swift and decisive action on this matter. The Caribbean needs and deserves this recognition,” he told stakeholders in the industry from around the region.The minister, in stating reasons why he believed the Caribbean deserved the status, said that it comprised 45 states, several ethnic groups and had the highest number of maritime boundaries of any large marine ecosystem in the world.He noted, too, the Caribbean was one of the busiest shipping routes in the world, home to some 63 000 annual ship calls, which carried an estimated 82 000 tonnes of garbage.“Land-based sources of pollution, intensified tourism development and large oil shipments also have negative environmental impacts and risks,” the minister said.Touching on some of the obligations undertaken by Barbados and other CARICOM states, Benn said that sometimes implementation had been hampered, since servicing those agreements placed significant burdens on the countries in terms of technical, financial and human resource requirements. (CT)
