First SMART-C LC/LP London Protocol workshop in the Caribbean

Last week (3-5 August) the Dominican Republic hosted the first Caribbean SMART-C LC/LP Project workshop in the capital city of Santo Domingo. Project Manager Suzanne Agius, Project Technical Officer Polly Hill and Project Consultant Gildardo Alarcon Daowz led a group of 24 delegates from 19 countries across the wider Caribbean region to develop a roadmap to ensure the region gets maximum benefit from the SMART-C LC/LP Project.

The Armada of the Dominican Republic opened the workshop and welcomed us to the Dominican Republic. The SMART-C LC/LP team delivered a combination of basic training on London Protocol implementation and reporting, and interactive exercises to get the group thinking about what is and is not dumping, and how best to assess a dumping permit application.

Delegates shared the permitting processes from their own countries through a series of poster sessions and began to develop National Action Plans for London Protocol implementation in their countries. Sharing each other’s experience and approaches provided food for thought, with one delegate saying ‘that’s a great idea, we can easily do the same thing.’

Delegates said, ‘there’s a lot of really quality and thought-provoking material here,’ and ‘many of us are having very similar challenges with London Protocol implementation.’

Understanding the region’s needs in terms of training and other support allowed us to co-design a roadmap for the region to ensure all countries make progress through the course of the SMART-C LC/LP Project.

Presentations were delivered by guest speakers from our implementing partners, the Cartagena Convention Secretariat and the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST), and some local organizations doing work relevant to the London Protocol: Autoridad Nacional de Asuntos Maritimos (ANAMAR), Fundación Dominicana de Estudios Marinos (FUNDEMAR), and Oficina Nacional de Estadística (ONE).

At the end of the three days, delegates were invited to make public declarations of the next three actions they pledge to take to progress London Protocol implementation in their country. The workshop was then closed by our hosts, the Armada of the Dominican Republic.

What’s next?

Delegates will work on the three next actions they pledged to take, the first of which is to complete their National Action Plans for London Protocol implementation, get the plan signed off and agreed to by all stakeholders and submit it to us so we can support them with it.

We are setting up a London Protocol Community of Practice, chaired by Honduras, that will meet quarterly to maintain the momentum we built last week and keep each country in the region moving on its journey to full London Protocol implementation. The Community of Practice will be a place to share experience, lessons learned, struggles and requests for support. It will have an associated WhatsApp group for more immediate communication.

We are also implementing a buddy (or brother/sister) system to buddy up countries at different stages of London Protocol implementation to support each other more directly. We would like to have some more experienced buddies to support countries at earlier stages in their implementation, and they do not need to be in the wider Caribbean region so please contact us if you are interested in supporting the wider Caribbean region.

Finally, the next in-person workshop in this region will be hosted by Honduras in the week of 19-23 October. This will be an advanced workshop focused on characterizing waste that has been proposed for disposal at sea.