Demonstrations of Innovative Approaches to the Rehabilitation of Heavily Contaminated Bays in the Wider Caribbean

This initiative is a follow up of the Pilot Phase PRIF project “planning and Management of Heavily Contaminated Bays and Coastal Areas in the Wider Caribbean”; the project areas were Havana Bay (Cuba), Puerto Limon (Costa Rica0, Cartagena Bay (Colombia) and Kingston Harbour (Jamaica). This PRIF project resulted in the development of investment and institutional strenghtening plans and in the identification of sources of financing for the implementation of remedial actions. Leveraged baseline investments in the four bays were in excess of $250 million. As a follow-up to the PRIF and on-going baseline, the proposed GEF project will leverage national co-financing to help two of the countries to overcome a number of key barriers to the adoption of best practices that limit the contamination of their national and adjacent international waters. This would be achieved by implementing demonstration/pilot projects for reducing the input of priority transboundary contaminants, the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus, to havana Bay, Kingston Harbour and the adjacent Wider Caribbean. The project will also strengthen and/or help create new institutions responsible for the rehabilitation and sustainable management of the two bays. The project supports the mandate of the Cartagena Convention (Art.7 and Art. 13) as well as the new Land-Based Sources Protocol currently in preparation. UNEP, the co-implementing agency, will be responsible for the regional coordination, and for the sharing and dissemination of nutrient pollution control strategies in the Wider Caribbean region.