Earth Today | CANARI, UWI CERMES formalise renewed collaboration

AFTER YEARS of close collaboration, the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) and the University of the West Indies Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (UWI CERMES) recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that will formalise the long-standing partnership between the two regional organisations.

The MOU, which outlines shared values and common goals, aims to guide specific collaboration in shared areas of work, to foster information sharing, and to promote joint communication for awareness and policy influence. To that end, CANARI and UWI CERMES have identified six main areas of cooperation, spanning biodiversity and ecosystems conservation, equity and justice, participatory governance, resilience building, innovation, and applied research.

The signing of this MOU builds on years of successful collaboration between both organisations, as pointed out by CANARI’s Executive Director Nicole Leotaud, who emphasised that “CANARI and CERMES have a very long history of close collaboration on research, capacity building and policy influence based on our shared values and common vision of Caribbean people’s well-being and livelihoods supported through stewardship of natural ecosystems. We are very excited to expand and deepen our partnership through this MOU.”

Most recently, CANARI has been supporting work led by UWI CERMES to reduce the impacts and improve adaptation to sargassum influxes in the Eastern Caribbean and CERMES supported activities under a CANARI-led project to mainstream climate change adaptation in the fisheries of Anguilla and Montserrat. The organisations have also partnered on multiple initiatives applying ecosystem-based approaches to strengthen small-scale fisheries, including supporting the role of fisherfolk organisations in governance.

Dr Patrick McConney, UWI-CERMES’s director at the time, also welcomed the signing of the MOU, noting that, “CERMES is pleased to have established a MOU with CANARI that recognises our decades of close collaboration as well as our shared commitment to continue institutionalising participatory natural resource management in the Caribbean, from policy and planning through to everyday practices.”

The Caribbean Natural Resources Institute is a regional technical non-profit institute which has been working across the Caribbean islands for 30 years. With the mission to promote and facilitate stakeholder participation in the stewardship of natural resources in the Caribbean, their work focuses on biodiversity and ecosystems, equity and justice, participatory governance, and resilience.

CERMES, meanwhile, is a department within the Faculty of the Science and Technology of the University of the West Indies in Barbados. Its mission is to promote and facilitate sustainable development in the Caribbean region and beyond, with a strong focus on tropical islands environmental management.