Strengthening marine biodiversity conservation (Pacifico)

The Central and Eastern Tropical Pacific (CETP) encompasses Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador and Panama and includes their exclusive economic zones. This biodiversity-rich region has 5 main Marine Protected Areas, 4 of which feature on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. This makes the region very important to these countries’ economies, as well as to the well-being of coastal communities and those dependent on fishing and tourism. However, the illegal exploitation of natural resources represents a grave threat to local marine conservation. As a result of optimisation coupled with innovative monitoring and surveillance activities the PACIFICO Foundation project - supported by the FFEM - should contribute to more effective and joined-up management of the zone’s biodiversity.

The project has 5 components:

• Coordinating and improving the monitoring of large pelagic species in the 5 Marine Protected Areas of the CETP and in their priority connecting zones, to obtain region-wide consolidated data.
• Organising and strengthening control and surveillance capabilities already present in the 5 Marine Protected Areas.
• Improving national and regional coordination between the authorities responsible for the environment, fishing, and defence of the 4 countries.
• Consolidating PACIFICO as a sustainable regional financing mechanism for biodiversity conservation throughout the zone.
• Supporting innovative pilot initiatives in the blue economy in order to ensure the transition toward practices that are more ecological, sustainable, effective and socially equitable.

• Definition and implementation of a standardised regional protocol to monitor large pelagic species
• Conclusion of new agreements between the Marine Protected Areas and other control and surveillance authorities.
• Operational implementation of a regional digital platform (website and database) managed by the CMAR-PACIFICO alliance.
• Development of institutional capabilities at PACIFICO.
• Documentation of the knowledge gained on best practices to support blue economy initiatives.

This project, supported by the FFEM, is primarily innovative through its regional approach to more effectively addressing marine and coastal biodiversity conservation. The innovation thread also runs through the monitoring, control and surveillance activities, particularly in the adoption of new technologies and equipments. In the same way, it works to design and test new sustainable economic models which will provide important information for the future socio-economic development of the region.

Also, the data generated by monitoring within the Marine Protected Areas offer unprecedented historical information on several species. This will allow better understanding of the migration routes of certain species and how they are adapting to developments such as climate change.