Oceans and Human Health in the Caribbean Region

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter examines the characteristics, challenges and prospects of environmental governance and participation in issues pertaining to human health and the ocean in the CARICOM Caribbean region.

Design/methodology

Utilising the fisheries sector – one of the principal economic, social and environmental drivers relating to the marine environment in the Caribbean region – we discuss the concepts of hierarchical governance in contradistinction to heterarchical governance. This is done through a socio-legal analysis of the predominant top-down model of governance, a discussion of the successes and shortcomings of bottom-up governance and a proposal for more inclusive participation methodologies in the region.

Findings

While the paradigm of new collaborative environmental governance was birthed in the aftermath of the 1985 Brundtland Commission Report, and moreso since the 1992 Rio Conference, this analysis will show that governance of the marine resource, and consequently how the individual is juxtaposed within this matrix, has not shifted from a position of hierarchy to one of heterarchy, as prescribed by the governance literature. Indeed, the structures for governance remain largely top-down in nature and while many states have begun to embrace more inclusive and participatory methodologies many of these interventions will need to be bolstered if the governance of the region’s marine resources is to progress from traditional top-down to more inclusive and representative typologies.

Practical implications

These concepts, when applied to the subject of environmental governance, will demonstrate that there needs to be an improvement in participatory environmental governance in the CARICOM region if the integrity of human health and the ocean is to be maintained. Importantly, while these methodologies strive for the formulation prescribed in Principle 10 of the 1992 Rio Declaration, and most famously exemplified in the 1998 Aarhus Convention, issues of environmental advocacy, transparency, inequality and justice need to be reconceptualised, if the region is to see prudent governance of the interface between humans and the ocean.

Originality/value

This research takes established concepts on the issue of locus standi in the common law legal tradition and juxtaposes it within the emerging paradigm of ecohealth and environmental governance. This conceptual framework has identified both the prospects and problems of environmental governance in the Caribbean region and may provide the basis for further research as well as more inclusive and sustainable environmental governance.

Citation

Lancaster, A.M.S.N. and Robertson, L.F. (2014), "Oceans and Human Health in the Caribbean Region", Ecological Health: Society, Ecology and Health (Advances in Medical Sociology, Vol. 15), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 311-334. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1057-6290(2013)0000015018