Montego Bay, Jamaica
7th October 2010

At  the  Fourteenth Intergovernmental Meeting on the Action Plan for the Caribbean Environment Programme and Eleventh Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region  being held in  Montego Bay, Jamaica, today the Bahamas announced its accession to the Cartagena Convention as well as its Protocol Concerning Pollution from Land-Based Sources and Activities in the Wider Caribbean (LBS).  After Guyana’s recent accession to the Cartagena Convention and all three of its protocols (Oil Spills, SPAW and LBS) becoming the 8th Party to the LBS Protocol, the accession by the Bahamas as its 9th Party means that the LBS now officially enters into force as a legal instrument and that there will be stronger pollution control measures in place in Caribbean waters at a time when the effects of sea temperature rise and climate change are of major concern to coastal communities with regard to the  conservation of the region’s marine biodiversity.

The Cartagena Convention now has 25 member countries, out of a total of 28 countries in the Wider Caribbean, only Haiti, Suriname, and Honduras have not yet acceded. SPAW now has 14 contracting parties.

Special thanks to Paul Hoetjes

It is available online for free, and there is one edition in English, and another in French.

Go to:
www.crisponline.net/CRISPPRODUCTS/Biodiversityknowledgeandconservation/tabid/317/Default.aspx

You will find a number of other informative publications on a variety of reef topics as well at this web page, all free to download.

 There is also a printed version of the crustacean guide which has both languages, not sure how to get that, best to contact CRISP.

The photos are gorgeous, and the text informative, it covers 223 species.  There is a section of general information on crustaceans at the beginning of the book.  The book covers reef, shore, mangrove, stream, and terrestrial species.

Enjoy!
Doug Fenner, Australian Institute of Marine Sciences

Special thanks to Doug Fenner and the Coral-list.

http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=fb7357aafe4ce51894c41682b&id=d65f181b07&e=1c101f3bc0

For the more than 400 of us who participated in the March 2009 Blue Vision Summit in Washington, D.C., it was both an inspiration and a practical chance to develop strategies and begin solving ocean problems early in the new administration. (See the Summit video narrated by Sylvia Earle and directed by David McGuire).

Following this historic gathering, we’ve seen the launch of the first U.S. Ocean Policy based on ocean health, but we’ve also seen an oily catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and continued declines in the health of our public seas and waterways.  That’s why we hope you’ll SAVE THE DATES and be part of a much needed third Blue Vision Summit in Washington, D.C. May 21-23, 2011.

This will follow the fourth annual Blue Frontier/Peter Benchley Ocean Awards that will take place on Friday, May 20, 2011 also in Washington, D.C.  SAVE THE DATE!

Planning meetings for the next Summit are scheduled for Wednesday, November 10 at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. and Wednesday, November 17 at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

For more information or if you’re group wants to be a sponsor and planner of the summit or the Benchley awards, please contact info@bluefront.org.

Special thanks to David Helvarg.