SANTA MARTA DECLARATION FOR A REGENERATIVE BLUE ECONOMY FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
Regenerative Imperative: We adopt the Regenerative Blue Economy approach, transcending sustainability to restore and consolidate the resilience of marine and coastal ecosystem (mangroves, seagrass beds, coral reefs, salt marshes, and others).
Urgent Climate Action: The region faces the immediate threat of the climate crisis and overexploitation. Transformative actions are required to halt ecosystem degradation.
Equity and Social Justice: Blue economic growth must intrinsically translate into social and territorial equity. It is vital to transform the inequality gap, ensuring that coastal communities, including youth, are protagonists of a just and inclusive blue transition.
Science and Ancestral Knowledge: Ancestral knowledge and cutting-edge marine science are honored as catalysts for action. Integrating the wisdom of our coastal communities is an ethical imperative to strengthen ocean education, train a new generation of scientists and technicians, and deploy the human talent needed for the maritime business models of the future.
I. SHARED VISION
Radical Collaboration: Given the immense scale of systemic change required, we adopt radical collaboration as a core way of thinking and acting together. We actively invite new actors and emergent entrants, recognizing that no one is expendable and every contribution is necessary to achieve our ambitious goals.
Binding Regional Cooperation: We call for overcoming the fragmentation of efforts. We will promote effective collaboration and policy harmonization among countries, institutions, civil society, and academia, aligned with the vision of the Ocean Decade.
Knowledge Incorporation: We commit to establishing regional projects for the transfer of best practices and ensuring that scientific knowledge and the voices of local stakeholders are systematically and mandatorily incorporated into all decisions.
Regenerative Finance: We call for redirecting investment exclusively toward sectors with measurable regenerative results. All projects that are detrimental to the marine environment must be discouraged and gradually defunded.
Innovative Financial Mechanisms: We will promote the creation of financial mechanisms that measure and value the crucial ecosystem and social returns, beyond traditional economic performance.
Blue Skills and Future Readiness: Recognizing that the youth of today will welcome the next century, we commit to deepening the understanding and dissemination of blue skills. We will collaborate to integrate these skills into our programs and amplify the training of professionals required for the regenerative blue economy.
Quality Blue Jobs: We will decisively promote emerging sectors such as marine bioeconomy and low-carbon energy to generate decent, quality and resilient jobs on the coasts, through the articulation of skills programs and blue jobs.
II. COOPERATION AND ACTION
Issued at the Conference on Blue Economy and Blue Jobs 2025, Santa Marta, Colombia, 2025
We, convened by the imperative of immediate action, and gathered in Santa Marta during the 2025 Conference on Blue Economy and Blue Jobs, hereby declare the following as the inescapable pathway toward the regeneration of our ecosystems and the blue prosperity of our marine and coastal communities:
III. COMMITMENT
We, the signatories of this agreement, solemnly commit to elevating this Declaration into a living, strategic, and binding instrument, ensuring its integration and priority application in the policy design, programs, and operations of our respective organizations.
We acknowledge that, while our efforts are essential, the amount of actors engaged in this work is still small. We recognize the urgency of bringing more voices and hands into this cause.
We have clear pathways and strong foundations, yet we fully embrace the questions and uncertainties that accompany a transformation of this scale staying open, adaptive, and willing to learn along the way.
We accept the responsibility to lead the periodic updates and evolution of this Declaration, ensuring it remains the most ambitious and relevant roadmap. We extend a continuous and wholehearted invitation to all new actors and collaborators who share this regenerative vision to join us in shaping its ongoing development.