T&T is well pre­pared to pur­sue the de­vel­op­ment of a sus­tain­able blue econ­o­my, ac­cord­ing to a the re­sults of a re­cent­ly com­plet­ed as­sess­ment.

The study was done by the Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at last year in part­ner­ship with the Unit­ed Na­tions En­vi­ron­ment Pro­gram (UN­EP), and the How­ell Ma­rine Con­sult­ing and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Portsmouth.

“In mak­ing this tran­si­tion, coun­tries can draw on ocean re­sources for eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, while al­so ef­fec­tive­ly pro­tect­ing the ma­rine en­vi­ron­ment,” said the Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at stat­ed in a re­lease.

The Sec­re­tari­at said that a new “Rapid Readi­ness As­sess­ment” (RRA) method was tri­alled based on UN­EP’s Sus­tain­able Blue Econ­o­my Tran­si­tion Frame­work.

The RRA pro­vides gov­ern­ments with a fo­cussed snap­shot of where to go next, in­formed by desk-based analy­sis, in-coun­try stake­hold­er work­shops and in­ter­views, it stat­ed.

Lead ad­vis­er for the Com­mon­wealth Blue Char­ter pro­gramme at the Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at, Dr Jeff Ardron said: “The Rapid Readi­ness As­sess­ment pro­vides a clear pic­ture of a coun­try’s ex­ist­ing poli­cies, le­gal frame­works, sys­tems and po­lit­i­cal land­scape and how these would fa­cil­i­tate a sus­tain­able blue econ­o­my tran­si­tion. They al­so iden­ti­fy the gaps and out­line rec­om­men­da­tions for next steps, in­clud­ing the types of re­sources re­quired.”

UN­EP’s head of ma­rine and fresh­wa­ter, Leti­cia Car­val­ho, com­ment­ed: “The util­i­ty of the Sus­tain­able Blue Econ­o­my Tran­si­tion Frame­work, and the avail­able as­sess­ments, will go a long way in help­ing coun­tries to take the first steps to­wards a whole-of-gov­ern­ment and whole-of-so­ci­ety ap­proach to main­stream­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty in­to com­pre­hen­sive ocean and coastal pol­i­cy as a pre­req­ui­site for sus­tain­able, re­silient and eq­ui­table blue economies.

“This frame­work can sup­port coun­tries to prac­ti­cal­ly ad­dress the crit­i­cal im­por­tance of ma­rine and coastal bio­di­ver­si­ty in the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the post-2020 glob­al bio­di­ver­si­ty frame­work.”

T&T’s ocean-based econ­o­my is shaped main­ly by its oil and gas sec­tor, in ad­di­tion to tourism and fish­eries.

The RRA high­light­ed the need for faster progress in de­liv­er­ing more in­te­grat­ed, cross-sec­tor ocean poli­cies and leg­is­la­tion, in ad­di­tion to high-lev­el com­mit­ment to chan­nel re­sources.

How­ev­er, there is a clear un­der­stand­ing with­in gov­ern­ment and among stake­hold­ers of the chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties for a sus­tain­able blue econ­o­my tran­si­tion, as well as strong and ca­pa­ble in­sti­tu­tions that are ready to act.

Rec­om­men­da­tions out­lined by the RRA in­clud­ed de­vel­op­ing a shared vi­sion for en­hanced whole-of-gov­ern­ment, in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al co­or­di­na­tion and the grad­ual phas­ing out of fos­sil fu­els as a key el­e­ment of the blue econ­o­my.

Dr Ra­han­na Ju­man, of the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs, T&T, said:

“I am pleased that the find­ings of the Rapid Readi­ness As­sess­ment sug­gest that T&T is well placed to ad­vance its own tran­si­tion to a sus­tain­able blue econ­o­my. Giv­en the com­plex­i­ty of the process, it is en­cour­ag­ing to know that it is very fea­si­ble to over­come the chal­lenges iden­ti­fied, through so­lu­tions such as ma­rine spa­tial plan­ning, cen­tralised da­ta man­age­ment, and re­search and in­no­va­tion in key sec­tors.”