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The National Environment and
Planning Agency (NEPA), the United Nations Environment Programme
Caribbean Regional Coordinating Unit (UNEP CAR/RCU) and the Global
Programme of Action (GPA) will stage a three day training workshop
from July 8-10, 2008 at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston. The
workshop is geared towards helping countries of the Wider Caribbean
Region to strengthen national capacities to address protection of
the marine environment from land-based activities by providing
relevant government officials with background information and
training in policy, legal, financial and conceptual frameworks and
tools.
The Workshop will be organized into four
training components:
a. Use and national application
of guidelines developed by UNEP's Global Programme of Action to
assist countries in the sustainable development of their coastal
areas;
b. Results-based planning and monitoring of pollution of the coastal
and marine environment;
c. Mechanisms to integrate watershed and coastal zone management
into national development
processes;
d. Financing for implementation of national environmental plans of
action with particular focus on pollution prevention;
Nine English-speaking countries
of the Wider Caribbean Region are expected to participate in this
training workshop. These are the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize,
Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia and Trinidad & Tobago.
There will be two delegates from each country, representing the
ministries of environment, planning and/or finance. Several other
regional environmental and finance organizations are expected to
attend including the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), CARICOM,
Caribbean Environmental Health Institute (CEHI), Global Environment
Facility –IWCAM Project, Institute of Marine Affairs (IMA) and the
Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), the US National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), UNEP ROLAC and UNEP RONA.
The Workshop is expected to
result in improved national capacity for the implementation of
national pollution prevention plans thus contributing to the
achievement of UNEP's Global Plan of Action for controlling and
preventing pollution from land based sources and activities. It is
also expected to identify specific recommendations to overcome
existing national and regional barriers for dealing with pollution
and to assist countries in signing on to the only regional agreement
for pollution prevention in the Wider Caribbean. Only four countries
in the Wider Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago, St Lucia, France
(Martinique) and Panama have signed the Land Based Sources of Marine
Pollution Protocol.
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