Abstract

The Caribbean is known for its marine products and natural resources. These products are used locally and exported to foreign markets. Directly or indirectly, millions of peoples’ livelihoods and food security are dependent upon healthy Car-ibbean ecosystems supplying these resources to local and international markets. Additionally, a great deal of wealth is gen-erated via snorkeling, diving and other tourism activities requiring healthy marine ecosystems. These are the economic drivers generating wealth for local communities and urban centers, in turn meeting the food security needs of a broad net-work of interdependent communities. Ensuring this matrix of community’s remain viable is of vital importance to the peo-ple and institutions in the region Education is a key area of investment to support the sustainability of the Caribbean’s marine ecosystems. This presen-tation provides a framework for a basin-wide education initiative that connects specific communities’ local contexts and conservation needs shared across the region. It is designed to fit within the region’s varied national school curricula. The framework is differentiated by integrating locally relevant traditional ecological knowledge and local languages of fishing communities with conservation science and languages of instruction across the region. Presenting a bilingual teaching cur-riculum that includes locally relevant languages and concepts will facilitate learning conservation science concepts for the children of fishers and tour guides. This approach promises to raise a generation of fishers and tour guides that would be better equipped to work with conservationists and resource managers toward their shared interest in sustainable use and development of marine resources.

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