Ahead of the 17th meeting of OECS Ministers of the Environment at Paradise Cove Hotel in Anguilla on Thursday, October 3, was a four-day exhibition, at the Public Library, on climate change which was of much curiosity and interest to scores of schoolchildren.
The exhibition, for students at the Primary Schools and the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School in particular, had as its theme: “Building a Climate Conscious Society”. The displays covered coastal impacts of climate change; OECS vulnerabilities to climate change; climate change and natural disasters; renewable energy as a climate change adaptation measure; impacts of climate change on water resources; and impacts of climate change on agriculture and tourism.
Just before viewing the exhibits, many of the children were shown, at the Teachers’ Resource Centre, video clips of the ravages of climate change in several of the neighbouring islands. They had also taken part in a climate change awareness performance before going downstairs to the foyer of the Public Library for the exhibition.
The performance was led by TeclaFontenard, Communication Specialist with the OECS project called “Reducing the Risks to Human and Natural Assets Resulting from Climate Change” (RRACC). The RRACC Project is a joint effort by the OECS Secretariat and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to assist Eastern Caribbean States in various ways relating to climate change.
“Climate change is described by some environmentalists as the greatest economic and environmental challenge facing humankind,” Ms Fontenard told the students and a number of persons from the public and private sectors at the opening ceremony for the exhibition. “In the OECS region, people mostly relate climate change to experiences with bad weather; but climate change is just not about rains, storms andhurricanes. It is also about hotter days and nights, about higher and warmer oceans, melting ice and therefore impacts many aspects of our lives. It causes loss or damage to beaches, or what we call beach transformation. Climate change is blamed for damage to coral reefs and loss of fisheries…; loss of agricultural crops; damage to infrastructure leading to loss of jobs; unavailability of food and water; exposure to more varieties and incidences of diseases which means poorer health; and reduces appeal and attractiveness to our tourism products and services. Climate change therefore can impact our overall quality of life.”
Ms Fontenard continued: “That is the purpose for setting up this exhibition here at the Public Library. We want to share with you information and experiences on climate change. We want to bring to your awareness that climate change is not a distant yet to be proven prediction, but that climate change is here – and it is already being felt in Anguilla and in other parts of the region – and it is time for you to be ready. The main goal of our exhibition, therefore, is to help towards building a climate conscious population here in Anguilla. This exhibition is part of a wider climate change awareness campaign that aims to make the people of the OECS climate ready.”
She added: “We believe sharing the exhibitions with students provides an utmost opportunity – not just to build awareness but to build interest and curiosity in the topic with the hope of getting them to lead climate change conversations and action. Young ones always provide hope. They can serve as champions, catalysts and conduits.”
Leonard Deane, Project Coordinator with the OECS Sustainable Energy Technical Assistant Project, who chaired the ceremony, reiterated that climate change was a major challenge to regional economies and it was important to understand the impacts of climate change and how to cope with the weather phenomenon. Among other matters, he made the point that Anguilla had some beautiful beaches and there was a need to pay particular attention to them.
Anguilla’s Minister for the Environment, Jerome Roberts, said in part: “As a small island, Anguilla is very susceptible to the potential impacts of climate change, droughts, flooding and the inundation of the land by sea level rise. We are aware that the threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing. In fact, our response to this challenge today will be judged by history. If we fail to build resilience to adapt to those potential impacts now, we will risk consigning our future generations of Anguillians, and the entire OECS region, to an irreversible disaster.”
Mr Roberts said that a contributory impact of climate change in Anguilla was most obvious at Shoal Bay East. He pointed to the extreme erosion there which caused over seventy feet of coastal land to diminish.
Mr Roberts, who declared open the climate change exhibition, continued: “As Minister with responsibility for Education and the Environment, it will be remiss of me not to emphasise the need to ensure that Anguilla provides quality climate change education. Our approach must encourage innovative teaching methods that will integrate climate change education in schools. Furthermore, we have to ensure that we enhance our non-formal education programme through the media, networking and partnerships to build public knowledge on climate change.
“I want to commend those educational institutions that have already established school gardens for themselves and their community and to encourage those who are in the process of doing the same. I am aware that some students have learnt about the fragility of their environment by participating in such initiatives. In fact, conservation projects allow children to acquire first-hand knowledge on the delicate nature of their environment. I therefore applaud and encourage other schools to be creative and to develop similar or even more innovative schemes related to climate change and environmental management in their schools.”
The one-day 17th Meeting of the OECS Ministers of the Environment and Sustainable Development on Thursday, which followed the climate change exhibition, was chaired by Mr Roberts whose ministerial portfolio also includes Home Affairs, Natural Resources, Lands and Physical Planning. Both Mr Roberts and Mr Bentley Browne, Director of Social and Sustainable Development at the OECS Secretariat, delivered addresses at the brief opening session of the meeting. An OECS press release quoted the Department of Environment in Anguilla as saying that the meeting “is important for the people of Anguilla. It provides an opportunity for us to share environmental concerns and achievements in sustainable development, habitat mapping, and results of our recently conducted eco-system assessments.”
As part of their agenda, the Ministers were expected to hold talks with development partners and donor agencies on funding needs for undertaking sustainable development- related projects and programmes in the region. They were also to receive reports on the environmental portfolio of the region.
The OECS Secretariat confirmed that all the Member States were to be represented at the Ministers’ meeting. These states are Antigua and Barbuda, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, the British Virgin Islands and host island, Anguilla.
On Wednesday evening the OECS Ministers were welcomed to Anguilla at a cocktail reception at Government House by Governor Christina Scott.
