Report of the 3rd meeting of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) of the Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW) Protocol, in Caracas, Oct. 4-8, 2005

Paul Hoetjes, VSO-MINA

Two delegates of the Netherlands Antilles participated in this meeting, Paul Hoetjes of MINA, technical focal point for the SPAW protocol, and Annouk van Swakhoven of the Directorate of Foreign Relations (DBB).

The meeting was opened by Alessandra Vanzella Khouri, SPAW program officer of the secretariat of the Caribbean Environment Program (CEP) in Jamaica, and welcomed by Jesus Ramos Oropeza, Director General of the Office of Biological Diversity of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources of Venezuela.

The following officers for the meeting were proposed and approved:

As the agenda was discussed the Netherlands Antilles requested two additions:
Discussion of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Inter-American Sea Turtle Convention (IAC), and discussion, more and more work is being done of a conference room paper prepared by Mr. Milton Kaufman, of the Animal Welfare Institute about adding the possibility of NGO sponsored/hosted RACs and RANs to the document on structure and organization of RACs and RANs that is presently under discussion by a working group established by the Intergovernmental meeting in Jamaica in 2004. Both items were accepted, one under the SPAW workplan and budget, the other under ‘other business’.

SPAW work program

The secretariat then presented the status of implementation of the SPAW work program and budget for the 2004-2005 biennium. This work is becoming more and more as the SPAW protocol develops and grows. Highlighted in particular were the successes in fundraising for the work program; the recently started work on the Meso-American Barrier Reef system in cooperation with the International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN), and an earlier cooperation effort which had resulted in the important Reefs@Risk study; continuing work on sub-regional coral reef monitoring nodes (including the Netherlands Antilles coral reef monitoring node), work with ICRAN on Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) selected as demonstration sites and their counterpart sites (this includes the Bonaire National Marine Park), the funding of small projects in MPAs (including in St. Eustatius); the activities to reinvigorate the Caribbean Marine Protected Area Network (CaMPAM) in partnership with various regionally active NGOs started at the WW2BW meeting in 2004, such as the further development of a web based MPA database. The secretariat mentioned that since 2002 no new signatories had joined the SPAW protocol despite continuing efforts by the secretariat, which was a source of some concern for the parties. There was consensus that activities should focus principally on the countries that have ratified the SPAW protocol and less on non-party countries even though they be signatories to the CEP. It was understood however that conservation of the region does not always stop at the borders of the parties and consequently activities can be necessary outside of the contracting parties. Still, there should be incentives to becoming a party.

The SPAW Regional Activity Center in Guadeloupe then presented its activities for the SPAW program which most notably consisted of leading the electronic working group on guidelines and criteria for listing of Protected Areas under the SPAW protocol, including organization of a working group meeting in Guadeloupe in 2004; facilitation of the steering group for the Marine Mammal Action Plan (MMAP), including organizing a steering group meeting in Guadeloupe, also in 2004; and work with the Island Resource Foundation on developing guidelines to avoid species from becoming threatened or endangered. Other work included support for the training of trainers program for MPAs, and organization of a meeting of the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds.

Criteria and guidelines for listing of Protected Areas

On the second day of the meeting the draft guidelines and criteria for the listing of Protected Areas produced by the electronic working group led by the RAC were discussed. This proved to be a very long discussion that continued on the following day. Having taken part in the working group the Netherlands Antilles made several interventions in the course of the discussions, one of which addressed the lack of direction from the Conference of Parties n Jamaica in 2004, which, even though requested, had failed to indicate what exactly the objectives of the list of PA under the SPAW protocol were and whether the list should be open or exclusive. The STAC concluded that the main objective of the list was to create a network to promote cooperation. The Netherlands Antilles suggested that this should mean it should be fairly easy to join the list and PAs presently not able to comply with the requirements should upon nomination enter a program to aid them in achieving compliance. A text proposal to this effect was accepted immediately. In the end much of the draft was accepted with only small changes. The formulation of the ecological criteria changed a little, particularly in adapting the two ‘must have’ criteria. The final consensus was that in all cases there had to be compliance with at least one of the ecological criteria, notwithstanding compliance with one of the cultural or socio-economic criteria. Some additional work was requested from the working group on certain points. One request was that the working group develops a glossary defining in more detail how various criteria should be interpreted. An additional criterion addressing special national heritage and archaeological values was requested. The working group was further requested to separate conditions of management obligatory for listing, such as having a management framework and a functioning management team, from principles of management that should be strived for but which, as suggested by the Netherlands Antilles, would be part of the joint professionalization, capacity building and institutional development process that should be the result of forming the network. The Netherlands Antilles highlighted the recently established DCNA as an example of such cooperation.

Draft Marine Mammal Action Plan

The next item discussed was the draft Marine Mammal Action Plan (MMAP). Paul Hoetjes of the Netherlands Antilles, part of the MMAP steering group and chair of the Regional MMAP Workshop that brought together marine mammal experts in Barbados in July, presented a report of that workshop, which resulted in a draft MMAP now to be discussed by the STAC, as well as a number of recommendations for the STAC. Although many parties expressed their satisfaction on the work done by the steering group and the expert workshop and the very comprehensive document produced, several countries, in particular the US considered the present draft more of a framework than an action plan, which they considered should be more concise and address particular actions in a clearly defined time frame. The consensus was that the working group needs to be expanded through a similar process as used a few years back for the species criteria working group, ensuring a balanced participation of parties, observer countries and NGOs, it then needs to continue work on this draft along the lines suggested by the US. Meanwhile there was agreement that countries should already start work on National MMAPs. The recommendations of the working group were accepted only in part, i.e. those recommendations referring to priority actions that can already proceed without a finalized MMAP. A question by the Netherlands Antilles about what would then happen with the rest of the recommendations resulted in agreement that it would be left to the discretion of the secretariat to implement the rest of the recommendation s as appropriate.

There was an apparent reluctance on the part of several parties, particularly the US and Colombia, to really review or commit to the present draft MMAP, resulting in their sending it back to the working group. This seemed caused by a lack of appropriate representation of the party in the steering group or workshop, notwithstanding that all parties received invitations to attend the workshop. This reticence almost resulted in pushing back further consideration of the draft MMAP as it is developed by the working group to the next STAC meeting two years from now. The Netherlands Antilles protested this and argued that if the working group completed its work in time for the Conference of Parties next year, there was no reason it should not be presented at that meeting. Although there was still some concern from the US over whether the working group could only present a progress report to the COP and not a finalized draft MMAP, in the end there was agreement that a progress report could include a further iteration of the draft MMAP.

Workplan for biennium 2006-2007

The meeting then discussed the workplan and budget for the SPAW program for the coming biennium 2006-2007. As was again noted, more and more work is being done by the SPAW programme as it matures and develops. The Netherlands Antilles informed the meeting that at the end of October the Inter-American Sea Turtle Convention (IAC) would have a meeting of its consultative committee and suggested that since both SPAW and IAC already agree on having a Memorandum of Cooperation, the Secretariat could present a draft MoC to be discussed at the upcoming IAC meeting. This was agreed. Other issues of note during the discussions: Cuba proposed that the first application of the revised species listing criteria through a consultative process, be given a higher priority. France, the US and the Netherlands Antilles all argued that this is not a priority and that any revision of the species annexes of the SPAW protocol should primarily focus on ensuring that threatened or endangered species that are not on the list would be listed. The Netherlands Antilles added that if there were concerns about species already on the list that do not comply with the revised criteria, the party in question should bring this to the attention of the STAC and provide documented arguments to this effect.

Building on the suggestion of the Netherlands Antilles to enter Protected Areas nominated for listing under the SPAW protocol into a programme to help them comply with the listing criteria, the US suggested that the secretariat develop such a programme perhaps for the next biennium. The Netherlands Antilles submitted that the criteria and guidelines might very well be accepted by next year and the sooner wqork on such a programme started the better. The Caribbean Conservation Association (CCA) then offered to cooperate with the secretariat on this, initiate the process and seek funding for it. It was agreed that the workplan would be amended to this effect.

A long discussion centered on the formation of a working group to develop criteria for exemptions under article 11(2) of the SPAW protocol. After the Netherlands Antilles raised the question of how the secretariat would proceed on this, Colombia initially felt it was not appropriate for the secretariat or the STAC to decide how this working group would be formed and that such an important issue should have been put as a separate agenda item. In the end there was agreement to follow the same format as with the Species Criteria working group.

In the course of this agenda item, some presentations provided more detailed information on aspects of the workplan. One of these presentations, by Juan Carlos Fernández, of the Caribe Sur Foundation, informed the meeting about the intent to nominate the islands Los Roques, Archipélagos de las Aves, Bonaire and Curaçao together as a transboundary World Heritage Site (WHS) in a joint proposal by Venezuela and the Netherlands Antilles. Chair Venezuela immediately confirmed that this was an excellent proposal but that there is still more work to be done to evaluate the proposal. The Netherlands Antilles indicated that they are fully in support of this proposal and would like to cooperate in a biodiversity survey of the Aves together with Conservation International (CI) with whom they are also working in a survey of the Saba Bank. CI is also very interested in conducting a baseline study (Rapid Assessment Program, RAP) of the Aves archipelagos. Venezuela said that this would be very welcome since they will need to declare the Aves archipelagos a national protected area and need more supporting information for this. They were ready to start this process, with the Venezuelan chapter of CI and welcomed the help of the Netherlands Antilles in this. From there they would then continue on to a further political evaluation of the transboundary nomination. The secretariat also offered any technical support they could give to promote the Aes islands RAP.

Other business

In the final agenda item ‘other business’ the item proposed by the Netherlands Antilles regarding the possibility of NGOs sponsoring or hosting RACs and/or RANs was discussed after a Conference Room Paper prepared by the Animal Welfare Institute was distributed, outlining the underlying reasons and background for this. After some discussions the meeting agreed to have the secretariat forward the document and the report of the meeting to the working group to consider this.

Annex: Participating countries and territories