The Ocean Life Symposium, Dominica, 23rd

OCEAN LIFE SYMPOSIUM, DOMINICA REINFORCES CARIBBEAN WHALE CONSERVATION

April 2009

Map of Dominica The “Ocean Life Symposium” co-sponsored by the Pew Environment Group and the Eastern Caribbean Coalition for Environmental Awareness (ECCEA), in coordination with UNEP’s Caribbean Environment Programme (CEP), took place 23-25 March, 2009 at the Fort Young Hotel in Roseau, Commonwealth of Dominica, in the Eastern Caribbean. The Symposium is likely to be remembered as an important step to rehabilitate the role of the Caribbean region, and of the Commonwealth of Dominica in particular, in whale conservation.

At the Symposium the Prime Minister of Dominica, The Hon. Roosevelt Skerrit, reaffirmed that Dominica would no longer support whaling at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in keeping with what is in “the best national interest.” Dominica has become a pioneer in the Eastern Caribbean in promoting ecotourism and generally supporting environmentally sustainable development strategies. The Symposium also allowed representatives of governments and international and regional civil society organizations to engage directly with their counterparts in Dominica with a view to offering their support.

Click here and read “Whale of a Pride”, an Op-Ed by Sir Ronald Sanders, a former Caribbean diplomat, commenting on the significance of Prime Minister Skerrit’s announcement.

Background

In June 2008 the Prime Minister of Dominica, The Hon. Roosevelt Skerrit, announced that his Government would cease its 15-year policy of supporting Japan at the International Whaling Commission (IWC), specifying that a position in support of commercial whaling was inconsistent with its dedication to environmentally sound sustainable development. The decision by the Government of Dominica to change its whaling policy, possibly putting at risk an important source of development aid, and to break the regional consensus within the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) on the issue, was particularly courageous, and deserving of support and recognition from the wider international community.

The Ocean Life Symposium, Dominica took place in this context, and in the wake of several other positive developments in the past year in the region, namely:

The adoption of the Action Plan for the Conservation of Marine Mammals in the Wider Caribbean Region by the Contracting Parties to the Cartagena Convention for the Protection and Sustainable Use of the Caribbean Marine Environment and to its Protocol on Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW) in September 2008.
A Meeting in September 2008 between the Lenfest Ocean Program and fisheries experts and officers from various countries of the Eastern Caribbean sub-region and representatives of the FAO Regional Office in Barbados, to exchange data and information and to consider the preliminary results of a Lenfest study on the interaction of great whales and fisheries in the Caribbean and West Africa (the study has since been published on 13 February, 2009 in the journal Science).
Adoption of an action plan for the French West Indies Marine Mammal Sanctuary in the course of 2008 and the successful implementation of aerial surveys over Martinique and Guadeloupe for scientific assessments of marine mammal, sea bird, and sea turtle populations in the waters directly adjacent to those of Dominica.

Click here to access the program of the Ocean Life Symposium.

Symposium participants

Twenty-five participants from the wider Caribbean Region and overseas, as well as up to 30 representatives from Dominica took part in the Ocean Life Symposium, Dominica. The panelists and participants represented a diverse group of professions and expertise, including government agencies, non-governmental organizations (national, regional and international, conservation and animal welfare), scientists, anthropologists, fisheries experts, fishers, academics.

The neighboring French West Indies departments of Martinique and Guadeloupe were represented by officials from their Departments of Environment and from the Ministry of Cooperation, and officials from the Dominican Republic and Brazil, which is soon to open an Embassy in Dominica, also participated.

Regional and international non-governmental organizations, in addition to the co-sponsors, included BREACH (Guadeloupe), CaribWhale (a regional group focused primarily on whale-watching), Megapterax (Venezuela), World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA – Costa Rica office), Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS), and WWF. Dominica NGOs included The Waitikubuli Ecological Foundation (WEF), the Dominica Youth Environmental Organization and the Dominica Water Sports Association. The local chapter of the Alliance Française provided interpretation services.

Representatives from several of Dominica’s eleven fisheries cooperatives attended on the opening day for the discussion of the relationship between great whales and fisheries, including the presentation of the Lenfest study. In preparation for the Symposium, the ECCEA had undertaken a survey of the fisheries cooperatives to evaluate how marine mammals are used in the region as well as the status of and changes in local fisheries from the perspective of the fishers. The results of the survey were collated and presented to the Symposium by Dr A. Burton-James, former Chairperson of Dominica’s National Commission for UNESCO.

The symposium was chaired by Elizabeth Thompson, a Senator and former Environment Minister from Barbados who had formerly served as Pew Whale Commissioner in Lisbon in February 2009. At the opening night dinner Emmy-award-winning cinematographer and marine biologist Rick Rosenthal presented his film “Superfish”, produced for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

Government of Dominica

In addition to the warm hospitality of the people of Dominica, the Symposium benefited from the participation of the country’s highest dignitaries.

The opening dinner on 22 March was presided over by H.E. Dr Nicholas Liverpool, President of Dominica and his wife. The Hon. Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister, addressed the Opening Ceremony on Monday 23 March (see below), which was also attended by the Permanent Secretary for Agriculture and Fisheries, Mrs. Claudia Bellot.

Finally, the Symposium was closed on Wednesday, 25 March, by The Hon. Ian Douglas, Minister of Tourism and Legal Affairs. A presentation was also made the last day by Mr. David Williams, Parks Superintendent, Forestry, Wildlife and Parks Division.

To the delight of the meeting, in his opening address Prime Minister Skerrit renewed the commitment he had taken in 2008, stating:

….as long as I am Prime Minister this country will not renege on that commitment of staying clear of this voting for whaling. We have taken this decision as it is in the best national interest of Dominica to do so and we are not going back on that decision….So let you not all be troubled…very soon you may hear me making regional statements on this very important whaling issue.

Click here to read the complete transcript of Prime Minister Skerrit’s speech.

Symposium outcome document

The Symposium concluded with a consensus statement containing more than twenty recommendations addressed to various stakeholders. Among these were recommendations that:

the government of Dominica join other countries of the region in their efforts towards regional cooperation for the protection and sustainable management of the coastal and marine resources of the Wider Caribbean by becoming a contracting party to the Protocol Concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW) and the Protocol Concerning Pollution from Land Based Sources and Activities (LBS), so as to be able to benefit from the processes and initiatives supported by both agreements;
formal and informal practical educational and training programmes for fishers, educational institutions and others involved in fisheries and the tourism industry in Dominica be developed so as to promote best practices for the development of responsible whale and dolphin-watching activities, and that protocols and guidelines be developed to this end;
those civil society organisations engaged in promoting whale and dolphin conservation, animal welfare and non-lethal use of whales, in particular whale-watching, urgently develop strategies for encouraging overseas visitors to travel to Dominica;
in coordination with the appropriate funding agencies, ways to stimulate Eastern Caribbean economies be envisaged through community based initiatives, further creation of centers for the incubation of micro-projects, marine environmental education programmes and the organisation of regional and international symposia in order to raise interest and resolve for the protection of the region’s environment;
it be recognized that scientific research has demonstrated that whales' consumption of fish is not the cause of problems confronting fisheries management, neither in the Caribbean nor across the globe. Hence, the continued practice of blaming whales for fisheries depletion should cease, as it serves only to distract from the important business of resolving the real fisheries management problems;
the need for consultation with and full involvement of local communities to ensure success and the entrenchment of the desired approaches set out in the above recommendations be fully recognized.

Click here to download the consensus outcome document.

Contents

Background
Symposium participants
Participation by the Government of Dominica
Symposium outcome document