Project Description
The Dutch oversea territories in the Caribbean face many challenges when it comes to conservation and protection of the coast and ocean, such as marine pollution, invasive species and tourism additionally puts pressure on the fragile ecosystems. This highlights the relevance of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14, which concerns life under the sea. To move towards this goal, collaborative partnerships are seen as crucial due to the complexity and interconnection of today’s problems. This qualitative study explores how collaborative governance can help to reach SDG 14 with conducting interviews and a document analysis which offers additional insights. It is focused on Dutch actors collaborating in the Caribbean oversea territory and their motivations, advantages, challenges as well as recommendations for improvements are explored. This qualitative study indicates that collaborative governance can enhance marine conservation through enabling and creating joint learning processes, sharing of new information and an enhanced understanding of the situation when different actors with varying resources are brought together. A variety of actors are included in the collaborative arrangements, ranging from research institutions, to NGOs and the government. However, issues such as a lack of trust towards Dutch mainland stakeholders or cultural difference create challenges in these collaborative arrangements.
Author: L. Pech (2018)
