The Building Resilience in the Eastern Caribbean through Reduction in Marine Litter (ReMLit) Project is a 27 million Norwegian Kroner (approximately US$ 3 million) project implemented under the OECS Ocean Governance and Fisheries Programme with funding support from the Government of Norway. The ReMLit project which aims to reduce and control marine pollution in the Eastern Caribbean was launched in 2019 and is expected to be completed by 2022.

Beneficiary Countries:

The ReMLit Project is supporting six OECS Member States through project funding and technical advice that will help create the environment for change and adress marine pollution in the Eastern Caribbean. View the fact sheets of projects being implemented in each Member State:

• Antigua and Barbuda,
• Commonwealth of Dominica,
• Grenada,
• Montserrat,
• Saint Lucia and,
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Goals

The ReMLit project is pursuing three main objectives: 

• enhancing policy and legislation for effective reduction and management of waste,
• increasing the awareness of issues relating to marine litter and,
• undertaking concrete interventions to reduce and control litter in the marine environment.

These objectives support priority actions under the Eastern Caribbean Regional Ocean Policy (ECROP), an OECS-wide framework for regional coordination of sustainable development, management and conservation of ocean resources. ReMLit’s objectives support priority actions under the ECROP strategic action plan (ECROP SAP), specifically Priority 3: Promote Sustainable Economic Development; and Priority 4: Reform Ocean Governance. 

Activities

In order to reduce marine pollution in the Eastern Caribbean and raise awareness on the issue of marine litter in the OECS region, the ReMLIT project is implementing a 6-point approach to:

1. Enhance the enabling environment and coordinating mechanisms for waste management,
2. Create an enabling environment to facilitate new business opportunities or stimulate existing initiatives for material recycling, reuse or/and substitution
3. Develop fiscal and other incentive programs (for businesses and households) to reduce plastics and Styrofoam use, and encourage sustainable production, recycling and reuse where appropriate,
4. Develop a strategy to improve the transboundary/transnational movement of plastics and other waste within the OECS to enhance economies of scale and provide affordable secondary raw materials for waste recycling enterprises.
5. Support enhancement of national policy, legislation and fiscal incentive frameworks.
6. Develop and implement community-based interventions that contribute to reducing marine litter.

In order to undertaken these activities, the ReMLit project supports and directly engages with policy-makers, technical personnel and middle management, agencies responsible for ocean governance Biodiversity and Ecosystems Management, private sector and other relevant civil society agencies and communities in each participating country.

Access more resources on Ocean Governance and Blue Economy in the Eastern Caribbean via the OECS Library.

The OECS has been partnering for multiple years with international agencies who support projects developed in the area of Ocean governance and Blue Economy in the Eastern Caribbean.