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St. Kitts and Nevis, Grenada and Dominica. The production of documentaries on the Central Forest Reserve of St. Kitts and Nevis and the Annandale and Grand Etang forest reserves in Grenada; a public awareness campaign consisting of a jingle, two television and four radio public service announcements and a half hour documentary to highlight the role of protected areas in biodiversity conservation in the OECS; the completion of a study, with a ten-year plan on the sustainable financing of protected areas in the region.
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The Economic Union Protocol recognises that it is essential for the OECS to continue coordinated action on the environment. Consequently, in Article 24 of the Revised Treaty – Environmental Sustainability – the Protocol Member States agree to “implement the St. George’s Declaration of Principles for Environmental Sustainability in the OECS, to minimise environmental vulnerability, improve environmental management and protect the region’s natural (including historical and cultural) resource base for optimal social and economic benefits for Member States.” The powerful hurricanes which have devastated the region in the first two decades of the 21st-century have made this more urgent as they are a harsh reminder of the severe vulnerability of the Eastern Caribbean islands.
The enormity of the task of environmental conservation and protection, both in terms of human and financial resources, in the face of the gravity of the effects of climate change, has caused it to be an imperative for a common regional approach by the OECS. The OECS Commission has been implementing new projects to assist Member States meet the challenge and their responsibilities under the Economic Union Protocol. One of these, the iLand Resilience Project, is a specific response to Article 24 of the Revised Treaty: The seven-year project (2014 to 2020) was funded by the European Union at a cost of EC$11,222,220 with the objective of enabling each OECS Member State to implement the St. George’s Declaration and so fulfil the provisions of Article 24 of the Economic Union Protocol. The project aims at improving the capacity of the region’s natural resource base to withstand the impact of climate change through more effective and sustainable land management practices. For the OECS, there are six aspects to Sustainable Land Management.
(i) Proper urban and rural planning for sectors such as tourism, housing, agriculture and forestry; (ii) Food Security- Sustainable fishing, agriculture, Social Management and land management; (iii) Environmental Protection- Protecting functional ecosystems in the interior, along Coastlines and within the oceans; Managing disposal of waste, pollution and preserving biodiversity; (iv) Managing Natural Resources- energy, water, land biodiversity; (v) Disaster Risk Management – Building resilience to hurricanes/ storms, flooding and drought; and (vi) Economic Activity – tourism, business practices. The project also aimed at enabling the OECS Commission to better administer and manage its climate change programmes; and improve awareness and public education on climate change issues in the OECS.
