T&T, Panama explore blue economy cooperation

Trinidad and To­ba­go and Pana­ma are ex­plor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for greater co­op­er­a­tion in ma­rine re­search, tech­nol­o­gy, en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and the de­vel­op­ment of the blue econ­o­my.

The dis­cus­sions took place dur­ing a cour­tesy vis­it by Pana­ma’s Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go, Diomedes Her­a­clio Car­les Cleghorn, to the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA) in Ch­aguara­mas on Sep­tem­ber 10.

Cleghorn, ac­com­pa­nied by Third Sec­re­tary In­dra Per­al­ta, met with IMA Di­rec­tor Dr Ava Max­am and se­nior re­searchers to dis­cuss po­ten­tial in­sti­tu­tion­al part­ner­ships, knowl­edge shar­ing and joint re­search.

Max­am said the IMA was in­ter­est­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Pana­ma in blue econ­o­my de­vel­op­ment and ma­rine tech­nolo­gies.

She al­so iden­ti­fied po­ten­tial co­op­er­a­tion in ar­eas in­clud­ing lo­gis­tics and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, as well as the IMA’s work in oil fin­ger­print­ing, na­ture mar­kets and sar­gas­sum val­ori­sa­tion.

Cleghorn said Pana­ma’s po­si­tion as an in­ter­na­tion­al hub pro­vid­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for learn­ing and co­op­er­a­tion, while not­ing the im­por­tance of tech­nol­o­gy to the Caribbean.

“Pana­ma is a hub and host to the world, but there is some­thing to learn from Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Caribbean is unique, and tech­nol­o­gy is very im­por­tant,” he said.

Dur­ing the meet­ing, the IMA pre­sent­ed its Re­pub­lic Bank-fund­ed “Be­yond the Blue” project, which seeks to in­crease pub­lic aware­ness of the blue econ­o­my, pro­mote smart tech­nolo­gies in ma­rine and coastal man­age­ment, en­cour­age in­no­va­tion and cre­ate sus­tain­able liveli­hood op­por­tu­ni­ties.

A key com­po­nent of the project is a Na­tion­al Coastal and Shore­line At­las, which con­tains his­tor­i­cal shore­line and coastal da­ta to sup­port coastal plan­ning and ev­i­dence-based de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

The IMA al­so out­lined re­search in sar­gas­sum val­ori­sa­tion, blue car­bon, man­groves, bio­di­ver­si­ty, fish­eries and aqua­cul­ture, ma­rine spa­tial plan­ning, coastal ero­sion, sea-lev­el rise, ocean acid­i­fi­ca­tion, mi­croplas­tics, coral reef mon­i­tor­ing and oil spill sur­veil­lance.

Se­nior Re­search Of­fi­cer Dr Mau­rice Nar­cis said re­search, de­vel­op­ment and out­reach re­main cen­tral to the in­sti­tute’s blue econ­o­my work.

Sar­gas­sum was iden­ti­fied as an area of par­tic­u­lar in­ter­est, with the two sides dis­cussing ways of trans­form­ing the en­vi­ron­men­tal prob­lem in­to eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties through val­ue-added prod­ucts and re­search. Pana­ma al­so shared re­search in­to po­ten­tial med­i­c­i­nal ap­pli­ca­tions of sar­gas­sum.

The coun­tries al­so dis­cussed ma­rine lit­ter and plas­tic pol­lu­tion. Pana­ma high­light­ed its ex­pe­ri­ence with mea­sures to re­duce sin­gle-use plas­tics, in­clud­ing its na­tion­al ban on plas­tic bags, while the IMA out­lined its Pre­ven­tion of Ma­rine Lit­ter in the Caribbean Sea project.

Wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty and cli­mate re­silience were al­so dis­cussed, with Pana­ma shar­ing its ex­pe­ri­ence with drought and its im­pact on op­er­a­tions of the Pana­ma Canal. Pos­si­ble tech­no­log­i­cal re­spons­es, in­clud­ing wa­ter con­ser­va­tion and de­sali­na­tion, were con­sid­ered.

The vis­it con­clud­ed with a tour of IMA lab­o­ra­to­ries, in­clud­ing fa­cil­i­ties in­volved in re­mote sens­ing, blue car­bon re­search and oil spill mon­i­tor­ing.

Both sides ex­pressed in­ter­est in con­tin­u­ing dis­cus­sions on re­search, ed­u­ca­tion and tech­nol­o­gy co­op­er­a­tion.