The CLME Project assists participating countries from the Wider Caribbean Region to improve the management of theirshared Living Marine Resources -most of which are considered to be fully or overexploited- through an Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) approach.

A preliminary Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA) identified three priority transboundary problems that affect theCaribbean Large Marine Ecosystem (CLME) and Adjacent Regions:

• Unsustainable exploitation of fish and other living marine resources

• Habitat degradation and community modification

• Pollution

The final TDAs prepared under the full-sized CLME Project serve as the science basis for the development of an agreed program of interventions (called "SAP"), which may include policy, legal and institutional reforms, conservation measures and pollution control.

This Strategic Action Programme (SAP) will document the shared, and commonly-agreed upon vision of the countries participating in the CLME Project with regard to the priority interventions, reforms and investments that are required to ensure the sustainable provision of goods and services from living marine resources in the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR).

More specifically, the CLME Project will facilitate the strengthening of the governance of key fishery ecosystems in the WCR, at the regional, sub-regional and national levels. For this purpose, CLME will give particular attention to the strengthening of horizontal and vertical (technical and political) linkages between existing structures.

To assist this process, the project will create an integrated Information Management System (IMS), bringing together congruent fisheries, biological, pollution and socio-economic data and information as a powerful management tool.

Similarly, a framework for periodic monitoring and evaluation of progress towards the achievement of the CLME goals and objectives will be developed. For more information on this, please visit the section on the Regional Ecosystem Monitoring Programme (REMP).