Earth Today | Caribbean ocean management demands systems approach

ACROSS THE Caribbean, countries are working to meet the global goal of protecting 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030 – an important and necessary ambition. 

However, there is a hard truth we must confront: expanding protected areas without expanding capacity risks weakening, not strengthening, ocean management.

Too often, conservation is treated as a numbers game – more hectares, more designations, more targets met. But coral reefs do not recover because lines are drawn on maps. Protection only works when there are enough trained people, strong institutions, sustainable financing, and community support to manage these areas effectively.

The Caribbean is richly diverse. Our cultures, languages, and governance systems differ, yet our ocean connects us all. Fish move freely across borders. Reef systems stretch beyond national jurisdictions. Climate change affects every coastline. 

Still, our capacity to manage these shared resources remains uneven. This creates a real danger: we may meet international targets on paper while falling short of real impact in the water. 

We need to shift from thinking site-by-site to thinking system-wide. Research by Dr David Gill and colleagues at the Duke University highlights that the success of marine protected areas is influenced not only by their size or level of restriction, but also, often significantly, by how well they are governed and managed. 

Their work highlights the importance of factors such as leadership, local engagement and institutional capacity, which, in many cases, can be as important as, or even more influential than, whether an area is designated “no-take” or how long it has been established.

In simple terms, it is not just what we protect, it is how we protect it. A systems approach helps us tackle the root causes of weak management. It asks: Where are the bottlenecks? Where are the gaps in funding, coordination, or skills? Where can small, strategic changes unlock bigger, lasting improvements.

It also pushes us to design conservation that works for people. Effective ocean protection must be locally grounded, collaborative and fair. Communities need to see the benefits, whether through livelihoods, food security, or coastal protection, if conservation is to succeed in the long term.

If the Caribbean is serious about protecting 30 per cent of its ocean, we must be equally serious about investing in the systems that make protection work: people, partnerships, governance and financing. Ultimately, the health of our reefs and well-being of our communities will not be measured by how much we declare protected, but by how well we manage it together.

Contributed by Dr Fabian Kyne, Caribbean Biodiversity Fund

Blue Tang CBF cap:

Blue Tang fish in Grenada. 

Photo credit: Photo by Tanja Lieuw