Coordinating Compliance Management in the Central ETP

In the Central Eastern Tropical Pacific (CETP), Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Panama are responsible for planning and managing an extensive marine territory (2,150,976 km² of Territorial sea and Exclusive Economic Zones). This area is much larger than the land area of the four countries combined (1.610.272 km2). Considering the size of the CETP and the available resources, it is nearly impossible to effectively control activities in the area unless there is closer collaboration and transparency at a regional scale between the institutions that are responsible for regulating and controlling the use of marine resources.

For this reason, a key programmatic area of PACIFICO’s five-year strategic plan is to work on regional initiatives to coordinate compliance management efforts in the CETP.  Given the sensitivity of the issues, this task must be tackled at the highest levels of the four governments. Accordingly, with this grant, PACIFICO is supporting the efforts of the Ministers of Public Security-Defense and the Ministers of Environment of the region to develop a Regional Marine Strategy on Compliance Management for the CETP and to introduce transparency as a key aspect of the Strategy by encouraging data sharing between countries and the public availability of information such as vessel databases, license requirements and vessel locations.