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Treaties & Conventions

Environmental problems are typically not bound by borders and cooperation is essential to address them adequately. This has come to be widely recognized and as a result there are a number of international and regional multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs, also known as treaties or conventions) to ensure effective cooperation in dealing with transnational enviromental issues. These issues can be transboundary pollution carried by rivers, ocean currents, or through the atmosphere, or it could be migratory or wide-ranging species that don't recognize political borders.

List of treaties and conventions ratified by the Netherlands Antilles

CITES Convention
One convention that deserves particular mention here because its requirements directly impact private persons, is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species or CITES convention. The regulations required by the CITES convention, as the name implies, deal with the transportation of endangered species.

The Netherlands Antilles are party to the CITES, and its requirements are implemented through the National Nature Conservation Ordinance by directly referring to the relevant texts in the convention text itself. This means that for importing and exporting of species of plants or animals to or from the Netherlands Antilles, the CITES regulations are followed to the letter.

To find out what species require permits and what kind of permits, please check the annexes of CITES available on the CITES website

Species that are listed on the CITES annexes and occur in the wild in one or more of the islands of the Netherlands Antilles are listed separately on this website, please cllick on the link below:

CITES listed species native to the Netherlands Antilles

Other Treaties
In addition to CITES, The Netherlands Antilles is party to a number of other MEAs that deal with biodiversity or pollution issues.
Below is a list of them:

REGIONAL MEAs

The Caribbean Environment Programme (CEP) is one of the Regional Seas Programs of the United Nations Environmental Progam (UNEP). The Cartagena Convention is a comprehensive, umbrella agreement for the protection and development of the marine environment of the region, which provides the legal framework for cooperative regional and national actions in the Wider Caribbean Region. The Convention is supplemented by the Oil Spills Protocol, the SPAW Protocol and the LBS Protocol:

• Oil Spills Protocol - Protocol Concerning Co-operation in Combating Oil Spills in the Wider Caribbean Region
• SPAW Protocol - Protocol Concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife
• LBS Protocol - Protocol Concerning Land Based Sources of Marine Pollution

The Inter-American Convention for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles (IAC) is an intergovernmental treaty for countries in the American Continent and the Caribbean. The Convention promotes the protection, conservation and recovery of the populations of sea turtles and those habitats on which they depend in the region.
Download the text of the Convention

GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY RELATED MEAs:

Convention on Biological Diversity
Convention on Migratory Species
Ramsar Convention on wetlands
          Ramsar sites in the Netherlands Antilles

OTHER GLOBAL MEAS:

IMO – International Maritime Organization
Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS)
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