White Water to Blue Water Partnership Conference

Thank you all for joining us at this groundbreaking conference. I’m encouraged by the high level of interest in the White Water to Blue Water Partnership Conference. When we began planning this event, we hoped to have 400 participants. To our surprise, more than 700 people have taken part in our meeting.

I want to thank our Conference Co-chairs: The United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Central American Commission for Environment and Development.

I also want to say thank you to the members of my staff at the State Department including Dave Balton, Dick Wilbur, and Isabel Gates for their hard work to organize this week’s event. Thanks also to my colleagues at NOAA: Bill Brennan, Tom Laughlin and their team who put in countless hours.

I also want to recognize the members of the international steering committee who have guided the White Water to Blue Water Initiative from the beginning. Let’s give them all a round of applause.

This conference has been a great experiment in integration on many fronts. Obviously we’ve brought together a diverse group of participants including governments, universities, NGOs, international groups, and business. The national country teams, which include members from economic, environmental, and social ministries, represent another test of integration. Finally, we’ve combined our discussions to link topics ranging from coral reefs, fisheries, agriculture, tourism, and waste treatment.

We’ve obviously raised expectations with this experiment. Now our task is to harness the enthusiasm that has been generated at this week’s meeting and translate it into action. To that end, I’m proud to announce that altogether White Water to Blue Water now encompasses more than 100 partnerships.

Let me highlight a few:

• The Gillette Company, The Nature Conservancy, the United Nations Foundation have joined forces to protect wetlands around the world. Together they have given $750,000 for an inaugural project to protect the Sian Ka’an wetland in Mexico.
• The U.N. environmental program’s Global Programme of Action and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration signed an agreement to build projects to demonstrate how to reduce marine pollution in the wider Caribbean.
• I want to thank the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency for its generous pledge of $1 million to fund established channels of environmental cooperation in the region.
• Royal Caribbean Cruise Limited and the GLOBE Program launched a partnership to provide environmental science activities for children onboard Caribbean Cruises.
• The International Council of Cruise Lines and Conservation International announced a $1.1 million partnership for achieving environmentally sustainable cruise operations in the Wider Caribbean region.
• Two partnerships were formed to stem anchor damage to coral reefs and other sensitive underwater areas.

This is just a handful of the many worthy partnerships we’ve formed. But each represents real progress. To be sure, partnerships involve risk. We certainly don’t have all of the answers as we sit here today. But I liked the comment made at Wednesday’s plenary that it’s okay to go to sea with a leaky boat if you trust your shipmates.

In addition to implementing these partnerships, we can maintain our momentum in other ways. The White Water to Blue Water Website (www.ww2bw.org) will serve as a clearinghouse of information and as a matchmaking tool. The steering committee will meet periodically in order to advance the goals of the partnership. Finally, we can share our work at other international meetings. Tomorrow, I’m headed to Jeju, Korea for UNEP’s Global Ministerial Environment Forum where I will report on our progress here in Miami. I encourage you to do the same other international gatherings.

On behalf of Secretary Colin Powell, I want to reiterate the U.S. commitment to White Water to Blue Water and to the wider Caribbean region. My country’s ties to the region are as much cultural and human as they are economic and political. And we will do all we can -- with your help and partnership -- to protect it.

As we tackle this challenge, I am inspired by a meeting I had on Wednesday with 20 middle school students from Miami. As part of the White Water to Blue Water Conference, the State Department connected these students with their peers in Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago to discuss scientific measurements they take as part of the GLOBE program. This was the first time that they had discussed their observations of the environment with their neighbors in the hemisphere. It was truly exciting to watch as the students asked each other questions and realized that in spite of cultural or language differences, they shared a common environment and a common concern to protect it.

Incidentally, this event led to another partnership. In the coming weeks, the students will take simultaneous measurements of their environment and discuss them on an Earth Day web chat.

For these children and the millions of others from our region, keep up the good work that you are doing to leave them a better world.  Thank you.