• Promenade Road, Tudor Bridge, St Michael, Bridgetown, BARBADOS BB12037

Benefit Sharing and Traditional Knowledge Support

Traditional knowledge and practices are important in conservation and planning for a sustainable future. Indigenous peoples and local inland-based and coastal communities throughout the Caribbean were the original guardians of lands, coasts and natural resources. CariMarine, however, acknowledges that local communities do not equitably benefit from the use of natural resources and traditional knowledge is undervalued in ocean and environmental policy and planning frameworks.

CariMarine seeks to:

  • Affirm the value of traditional knowledge and promote fair and equitable benefit sharing of natural resources
  • Facilitate effective implementation of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing under the Convention on Biologically Diversity (legally binding international framework)
  • Protect indigenous fisheries knowledge and traditional fisheries practices
  • Protect traditional knowledge and rights conferred to holders of traditional knowledge
  • Strengthen communities that are already part of the ABS value chain
  • Support communities in ABS negotiations

At CariMarine we:

  • Defend the rights of communities to natural resources and their traditional knowledge
  • Design and develop national ABS legal and policy frameworks
  • Design and develop traditional knowledge legal and policy frameworks
  • Facilitate dialogue between local communities and natural resource developers