• Not only are marine resources distributed across the Grenada Bank but they are shared between two nations and utilized by a variety of marine resource users emanating from nine inhabited Grenadine islands.

• Management thus far has taken a conventional, top-down, command-and-control approach guided by standard non-specific regional management plans and based on limited biophysical information.  

• Marine management of the Grenada Bank has not been integrated amongst disciplines, between nations or knowledge systems.

MarSIS is spatial mapping database which has been developed as a tool to aid decision-making and allow for more sustainable transboundary marine resource management. By using a GIS, existing scientific information can be merged together with a variety of local knowledge information on the marine resources and other areas important for conservation and livelihoods in order to provide a wider information base and allow for a more holistic and informed decision-making process between the countries of Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Moreover, the Grenadines MarSIS is considered a 'participatory GIS' in that has been collaboratively developed with a range of stakeholders (including the various marine-related government agencies of both St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada, a variety of NGOs, the marine resource users and the Greadine communities) over the past five years.