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Marine Conservation celebrates World Oceans Day
– ground-breaking MoU signed for collaboration on oil sector
In the absence of a marine monitoring programme to hold the emerging oil sector accountable for their operations impact on the marine environment, the 20-year-old Guyana Marine Conservation Society (GMCS) recognised that it had to look outward where that capacity exists.
Local conservationist, Annette Arjoon-Martins, working with a rescued sea turtle.
CEO of GFW Paul Woods and President of GMCS, Annette Arjoon Martins, with the signed MoU
That search ended when it found Global Fishing Watch (GFW), a Delaware non-profit organization with which the non-governmental organization (NGO) determined the existence of a shared purpose after a series of meetings.
“Both parties recognised the benefits to be derived from increased collaboration, cooperation and interaction for support of marine spatial planning in Guyana and development of new research and management tools,” the GMCS said yesterday.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for two years was developed. Areas for a collaborative framework and fundamental cooperation included benefiting from each other’s initiatives, and supporting collaboration among staff, students, researchers and academics associated with both parties.
“Areas of mutual interest for priority action included capacity building for ocean monitoring and marine spatial planning, potential impacts of oil and gas development and related vessel traffic on offshore and coastal habitats and species, conservation priority areas under changing climate, and the design of new tools under development at GFW that will aid in monitoring and management of marine areas in Guyana,” the GMCS explained yesterday.
Intellectual property that is jointly developed under the MOU, which includes but is not limited to research data, analysis, reports and findings, will be jointly owned by each party.
Coordinator for the society are well-known local conservationist Annette Arjoon-Martins, while coordinators for Global Fishing Watch (GFW) are Paul Woods and Kristina Boerder.
GMCS facilitated an in-country visit by the team from GFW in February 2020 for them to engage with relevant national partners, including the Department of Fisheries, Guyana Coast Guard, Department of Environment and the University of Guyana.
A half-day workshop was facilitated by the Ministry of Agriculture and several presentations on the work of GMCS, GFW and Marine Spatial Planning benefited the 24 representatives from agencies as well as local and international NGOs who participated.
According to Arjoon-Martins, the partnership has already yielded results such as enabling collaboration with Skytruth, a non-profit environmental watchdog that uses satellite imagery and remote sensing data to identify and monitor threats to the planet’s natural resources.
Its stated mission is to “use the view from space to motivate people to protect the environment”. Upon request from GMCS, the organization provided relevant data on the flaring of gas by Lisa 1, which commenced on Christmas Eve of 2019 and has emitted over 9 billion cubic feet so far.
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