Earlier this year, Belize became the first Caribbean nation to ratify the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement, under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. This agreement recognizes unique challenges faced by Caribbean Small Island Developing States and allows them to participate in decision-making processes specific to their circumstances. And starting today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade will be hosting a workshop to enhance knowledge of the BBNJ agreement. At the start of the workshop, the CEO in the Ministry, Amalia Mai, explained more about what the agreement seeks to do.
Amalia Mai, CEO, Minister of Foreign Affairs
"The agreement signals a strong interest of states to further strengthening the International Legal Regime in relation to oceans, and importantly a commitment to protecting our oceans' diversity. Today as we all know, our oceans are in crisis. Pollution from plastics, overfishing, explosion of sargassum and climate change are dealing an all out assault on our oceans. The rate of ocean warming has doubled in the last 20 years. The high seas are becoming more acidic."
"The good news is that the BBNJ provides an important legal framework that can help us to manage the ocean crisis. It can help us to promote more sustainable marine industries and it has supported the 30x30 global commitment which is to protect at least 30% of lands, fresh waters and oceans by 2030. And it also provides a basis for the sharing of benefits from ocean's genetic resources. Importantly, area based management tools and environmental impact assessments will help us to better protect and plan activities beyond national jurisdiction and to sharpen our understand on impacts of ocean environments. The agreement recognizes the necessity of capacity building and the transfer of marine technology to support countries like ours in ocean management."
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