On October 10 and 11, the first meeting of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) Commission will take place on Sint Eustatius. This is officially the Committee on Marine Biodiversity and Fishery Management of the Caribbean part of the Kingdom. During this meeting, the joint management of the waters of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Kingdom in the Caribbean will be discussed.
The EEZ is the sea area of a country that starts at the outer limit of territorial waters (up to twelve nautical miles from the coast) and from there extends to 200 nautical miles off the coast, as far as it does not conflict with the waters of other countries. In this case, usually the middle of the distance that separates the two countries is considered as the border.
Joint approach
At the time of the Netherlands Antilles it was agreed during a conference on the EEZ that the management of the biodiversity and the fishery in the waters of the EEZ should be handled in cooperation after the transition. Therefore a partnership agreement was established to manage the EEZ through a committee with representatives from all six islands of the Kingdom. This agreement has been signed by each of the three Caribbean islands of the Dutch Caribbean, and by the Secretary of State of El&I.
Participants
Consequently there is now a quorum for a first meeting of the EEZ commission. Although St. Maarten, Curaçao and Aruba have not signed the agreement, they have already been invited to send an observer to this meeting. Furthermore, the Coast Guard and the umbrella organization of the national parks of the six Kingdom Islands, the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance (DCNA), will participate as permanent observers at the meeting.