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