Residents stand on a bridge destroyed by massive flooding in St. Vincent. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
CASTRIES, St. Lucia, Jan 7 2014 (IPS)

Guyanese President Donald Ramotar says the death and destruction caused by intense rainfall in three Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries over the Christmas holidays is a sign that the region has no time to lose in fortifying its resiliance to climate change.

A slow-moving, low-level trough on Dec. 24 dumped hundreds of millimetres of rain on St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia and Dominica, killing at least 13 people. Following the deadly floods and landslides, the Guyanese government approved financial support of 100,000 dollars each for St. Lucia and St. Vincent and 75,000 to Dominica.“The damage unleashed by the trough [on]…that dreadful night has been extensive and severe." -- Prime Minister Dr. Kenny Anthony

“The scientific evidence is showing that for our region, which is one of the most vulnerable, these weather events will become more frequent as the impacts of global climate change intensify,” Ramotar told IPS.

Guyana’s coastal plains are approximately six feet below sea level.

“Recognising our own vulnerabilities here in Guyana, efforts will intensify in 2014 to improve and expand infrastructure, in particular our sea and river defence and drainage and irrigation systems; enhance our forecasting capabilities and response mechanisms, and build climate resilience in the social and productive sectors of our economy,” he said.

The Guyanese president said these steps will be taken within the framework of the country’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).

The LCDS, a brainchild of former president Bharrat Jagdeo, sets out a vision to forge a new low-carbon economy in Guyana over the coming decade. It has received acclaim globally, and is now in the implementation stage.

Ramotar said the time for urgent action is now, citing “millions of dollars in damage and loss of life” resulting from extreme weather events.

In St. Lucia – one of three Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) countries that felt the most severe impact of the Dec. 24 floods – Prime Minister Dr. Kenny Anthony said that while the full economic cost of the storm has not yet been determined, it is clear that reconstruction will run into several hundred million dollars.

“The damage unleashed by the trough [on]…that dreadful night has been extensive and severe,” he told IPS.

“We now know that some 10 homes were completely destroyed by the raging floods. Agriculture has suffered badly. According to initial estimates there was 30-40 percent damage to banana fields, 90 percent damage to vegetables and five percent damage to tree crops.”

Anthony told IPS that 90 percent of all ponds have suffered “varying degrees of siltation” and shrimp, fish and livestock have been lost.

“Our infrastructure, some of which was already compromised by Hurricane Thomas [in 2010] has taken a further battering,” he said.

St. Lucia’s minister of sustainable development, Dr. James Fletcher, told IPS that the catastrophic events brought about by climate change caused severe infrastructural and psychological damage.

“These extreme weather events are quite traumatic for us, both on our psyche and on our national purse…but this is what climate change is bringing to us and this is what we have to unfortunately look forward to,” he told IPS.

At the same time, Fletcher said citizens and commercial enterprises must do a better job of solid waste management, since the indiscriminate disposal of garbage clogs waterways and causes serious problems.

“Some people treat the rivers as garbage disposal sites. This is something that we have to pay close attention to,” he told IPS.

The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) said it continues to be in contact with the affected countries and is coordinating the response and recovery support. CDEMA is assisting the three impacted states in developing proposals to access the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) Emergency Response Grant facility and the Emergency Recovery Loan facility.

The government of Barbados is making available a coast guard vessel to assist in transporting emergency supplies to St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The “Trident” is capable of transporting more than four tonnes of cargo at one time.

In Dominica, where 65 households were affected by flooding, disaster officials estimate that 1.13 million dollars is required for immediate clean-up.

Prime Minister Anthony said the government of St. Kitts and Nevis has dispatched via the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank 1.36 million dollars as a donation to assist St. Lucia with its recovery efforts.

Britain is also providing 1.36 million dollars for vital emergency humanitarian support to St. Vincent and the Grenadines and St. Lucia.

British Minister of State for International Development Alan Duncan is visiting the region, and is meeting with the prime ministers of the two affected countries to discuss the humanitarian situation and reconstruction needs.

The newest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the ability of tourism-dependent Caribbean destinations like Barbados, Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas, among others, to provide not only for their residents, but for the many thousands of visitors demanding water, energy, and other natural resources, is in jeopardy.

“As severe storms, drought, hurricanes, and other climate challenges rise to the forefront of issues being addressed by CARICOM countries, emerging data sheds new light on the future challenges in store for the islands and coastal nations throughout the region,” the report noted.

A cleric prays with Colleen James in Cane Grove, St. Vincent hours before it was confirmed that James' sister had died in the floodwaters. Her two-year-old daughter is still missing. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, Dec 26 2013 (IPS)

Colleen James arrived in St. Vincent and the Grenadines from Canada two days before Christmas hoping to enjoy the holiday season with her family. Now she’s getting ready to bury her two-year-old daughter and 18-year-old sister.

“I never do nothing wrong. I always do good,” a dazed James told IPS as she looked out across the flood damage occasioned by a slow-moving low-level trough that brought torrential rains, death and destruction not only to St. Vincent and the Grenadines but St. Lucia and Dominica."We looked across and saw people floating down a river." -- Curt Clifton

Disaster officials have so far recovered nine bodies and the search continues for three more people reported missing and feared dead.

In St. Lucia, five people were killed, including Calvin Stanley Louis, a police officer who died after a wall fell on him as he tried to assist people who had become stranded by the floods.

The trough system resulted in 171.1 mm of rainfall within a 24-hour period ending at 8.50 a.m. on Dec. 25.

Trinidad’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar has requested that the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) mobilise food and emergency supplies to be sent to St Lucia.

The CEO of ODPM, Dr. Stephen Ramroop, has contacted the Deputy Prime Minister of Saint Lucia Philip J. Pierre and received a list of items that were urgently required, including canned goods, biscuits, infant formula, water, mattresses, blankets, hygiene kits, disaster kits and first aid kits.

The ODPM expects tp ship two 40-foot containers to Saint Lucia by 1.00 p.m. local time Thursday.

No requests have come from the other affected islands as yet.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, who has cut short his holiday in London, is due here on Thursday.

The body of 18-year-old Kesla James was recovered midmorning Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2013. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Curt Clifton told IPS he was visiting a friend in the Cane Grove community on the outskirts of the capital, Kingstown, when they “looked across by the neighbour and saw people floating down a river” and rushed to their aid. They managed to rescue James and one of her daughters.

The floods have caused widespread damage in all three islands. Roads, bridges and in some cases, houses, have been swept away and the telecommunications companies, as well as public utilities, are urging patience as they assess the situation.

“We have seen quite an extent of damage, particularly from the gutters coming down, bringing a lot of debris on the road,” Montgomery Daniel, minister of housing, informal human settlements, lands and surveys, told IPS.

“It is going to take some time for us to clean it up. We are going to need the assistance of heavy-duty equipment,” he said.

Sixty-two people were left homeless in the wake of the flooding.

Health officials have also urged residents to be wary of diseases associated with the floods as in many cases pipeborne water has been disrupted.

Dominica’s Environment Minister Kenneth Darroux, a surgeon by profession, is hoping that the island’s plea to the World Bank for financial assistance will help the island better prepare in the long-term for the devastating effects of climate change.

Darroux is spearheading efforts by the Dominica government to secure 100 million euro from the World Bank to fund the country’s Strategic Programme for Climate Resilience (SPCR).

“Discussions are at an advanced stage,” Darroux, who now serves as minister of environment, natural resources, physical planning and fisheries, told IPS. The funds will be part loan and part grant.

Darroux noted that “the traditional climate change and environmental issues were not really producing the results that the government wanted,” adding that climate change should be viewed as a development issue rather than just isolated changes in the climate.

The World Bank-assisted programme is scheduled to begin in 2014 and will address key issues in various parts of the country. These include capacity-building for adaptation to climate change at a cost of 3.7 million euro; construction of storm drains at a cost of 5.2 million euro; agroforestry, food security and soil stabilisation at a cost of 6.0 million euro; and road works totaling 56 million euro.

Dominica has so far received 21 million dollars from the climate investment fund, 12 million of which is grant financing and nine million is “highly concessionary financing”, Darroux said.

The country also expects a further 17 million dollars from the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR) and the Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project (DVRP), which is a regional project being undertaken by the World Bank which is running simultaneously with the PPCR.

“This investment package will seek to begin addressing the deficiency that was identified in the SPCR,” Darroux told IPS.

“I am confident that the implementation of this project will show the world that the people of Dominica stand ready to play out part in the climate change fight.”

The PPCR is a collaborative effort between Dominica, Haiti, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Each island has a national programme and the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (5Cs) serves as a focal point for the regional tracking of activities.

The issue of climate finance is a major one for Caribbean countries and several decisions taken at the 19th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 19) in Warsaw, Poland, this past November are of particular relevance to the region.

The Adaptation Fund Board (AFB) reached its target of mobilising 100 million dollars to fund six projects. These include a project in Belize, which had been submitted by PACT, one of only two National Implementing Entities (NIE) in the Caribbean accredited to the Adaptation Fund.

The other NIE is in Jamaica, which has also received funding for its project.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) was also operationalized at COP 19. Developed countries have been asked to channel a significant portion of their 100-billion-dollars-per-annum pledge for climate change through the GCF.

The Board of the GCF has been tasked with ensuring that there is an equitable balance of funding for both adaptation and mitigation. All developing countries are eligible for funding from the GCF.

A vendor selling produce at a market in Dominica, which has been alternately hit by flooding and severe drought. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
CASTRIES, St. Lucia, Oct 7 2013 (IPS)

Malcolm Wallace always knew on which side his bread would be buttered.

At the age of 19, he built and operated his own greenhouse on his father’s farm in Dominica, planting lettuce, sweet peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers."Every step that we make forward we are probably making two backward." -- Samuel Carrette

“It was very lucrative and I actually made money,” said Wallace, now a graduate researcher at the Trinidad-based Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI).

“The push was financial. You do stuff and you see it’s actually making money, you are actually able to take care of your family and lime [party] a little bit. Which young person does not want that?” he told IPS.

Caribbean governments have long sought to attract more young people to their agriculture sectors, and the nine-member Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) has declared agriculture and tourism the “key pillars for development in the region”.

Samuel Carrette, permanent secretary for ministry of environment, physical planning, natural resources and fisheries for Dominica, says the OECS is focusing on these two sectors in order to build a sound economic base, improve the quality of life of residents, provide employment and to reduce poverty.

But he laments that both sectors are seriously challenged by climate variability and climate change.

“For agriculture we have many situations of greenhouses being affected, being blown away by hurricanes or strong winds. We have flooding of fields, we have the issue of access roads being blocked or carried away,” he told IPS.

“The weather variability provides a very serious challenge for us in terms of scheduling activities,” he said, referring to the challenges for the tourism industry.

In 2011, Dominica experienced its worst flooding on record. That followed almost a year of drought from 2009-2010 that severely affected the agriculture sector. In 2008, the island’s fishing industry was destroyed by hurricane Omar.

“Government had to find monies to rebuild the fisheries industry by providing the fisher folk with all the required fishing gear to rebuild,” Carrette said.

The OECS is a nine-member grouping comprising Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands are associate members.

OECS countries have very limited resources – natural, physical and financial – as well as small markets and economies.

Ignatius Jean, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) representative in Jamaica and a former minister of agriculture for St. Lucia, told IPS that “food security is national security.”

Jean said that part of the IICA’s mandate is to support the member states in the management of natural resources, and coping with climate change in particular. They also work to show the linkages between the agriculture and tourism sectors.

He pointed to “the need for a multi-disciplinary approach towards managing the situation”, noting that this entails assessing the impacts of climate change and creating mitigation and adaptation strategies.

“We cannot run away from our territory. We have to learn to live with it. That is what adaptation is,” he said.

IICA has ongoing programmes to climate-proof the agricultural development strategies in Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica and the Dominican Republic.

Keith Nicholls, climate change expert with the Belize-based Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), believes the impacts of climate change will cripple tourism niche markets in the region.

He told IPS that increased storm surges brought on by climate change is impacting the dive sector, in particular coral reefs.

“Ultimately, if corals are going to suffer, then the loss of the biodiversity will represent a loss of a competitive advantage in tourism,” he said.

The increase in the severity of storms and hurricanes will also drive visitors away, Nicholls said. He argued that visitors will not come to a region deemed unsafe, especially given the vulnerability of beach resorts to storm surges.

“Tourists come here for sun and sea. Properties are losing their appeal because of beach erosion,” Nicholls said.

“Extreme drought conditions mean we have no water and the tourism industry is highly based on water resources. If tourists cannot get water in your country, they will go elsewhere to get water,” he said.

However, it is not just the absence of water that concerns Nicholls but the abundance of it.

“If it rains in the dry season and it rains all the time we are not going to want to come to such a place,” he said.

Carrette said his country, Dominica, has “been exposed to very erratic weather conditions and for us it is a bit too frequent. This is so because Dominica is exactly directly in the path of the hurricanes given its location so that predisposes us to the unfavourable conditions of the tropical winds systems.”

He noted that most of the countries in the Windward Islands are moving away from a reliance on the banana industry and trying to diversify their economies, so severe weather conditions are major setbacks.

“As small developing island states, basically every step that we make forward we are probably making two backward because we have to keep rebuilding major roads, seawalls and rehabilitating feeder roads in the context of agriculture and rescheduling of tourism activities,” he told IPS.

“We have to understand that the monies required for rehabilitation and restoration of human livelihoods are not available locally within your own budget and you do not have adequate reserves to mobilise resources to do restoration work and so you have to borrow. So for us it’s a major challenge as it increases our debt burden.”

Senior director of economic affairs at the OECS Secretariat, Randolph Cato, said recently that the total cost of climate change to the OECS tourism industry could be as high as 12 billion dollars over the next 40 years.

“We must do something about it,” he said. “Adapting to climate change will cost less than the potential damage.”

The nine-member Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) is pushing harder for regional integration with the launch of a new parliamentary forum that it says will play a major role in its efforts to establish an economic union.

“If the OECS Economic Union, and one of its principal organs – the OECS Assembly – are to guide us in overcoming the obstacles to growth and development, then it cannot be the ‘talk-shop’ that our people mock so derisively,” host Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer said at the launch over the weekend.

He said the value of the OECS Assembly as a forum for regional dialogue cannot be overstated, insisting that he expects “robust debate in this Chamber on the direction that regional integration should take.

“The OECS Assembly will perform a vital democratic function: it will monitor and debate the implementation of the OECS Economic Union, bringing to bear the views of representatives from constituencies all across the Union,” he told the inaugural session on Friday night.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines legislator Rene Baptiste, who was elected as the Assembly’s first speaker, reminded regional legislators that “we have serious work to do.

“This is our occasion to write our history with our own hands and in our own words,” she said of the work of the Assembly, which will comprise five legislators from each independent member state and three from the legislatures of each non-independent country, with representation from both the ruling administration and the political opposition.

It will meet at least twice annually and is one of five principal organs established by the Revised Treaty of Basseterre establishing the Economic Union. Its most important function is to be a consultative body to enhance regional dialogue on the critical issues of integration and development and to make proposals to the OECS authority for the enactment of regional legislation binding on all member states.

Spencer reminded the Assembly of the failure of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) initiative named the Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians (ACCP) which he said “fell into disuse even before it started”, adding its failure “should be a subject for early reflection by the OECS Assembly”.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, who is also chairman of the sub-regional grouping, said the Assembly should not be regarded as “an intellectual or academic pursuit” and that hoped it would serve as a venue where all legislators would engage in a “profound consultative process in decision making hopefully that would evolve into actual law making and direct elections in the not too distant future”.

Gonsalves said that the configuration of the regional integration process was now changing and the sub-region, comprising Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Montserrat, St. Kitts-Nevis, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands, must not be complacent.

“Do not for one moment think that we cannot suffer reversals in our subregional integration movement,” Gonsalves said.

“To be sure we have made immense progress since the original Treaty of Basseterre was signed in 1981. Our Revised Treaty of Basseterre of 2012 has made a quantum leap in regional governance and the creation of a single economic space, but challenges abound,” he said, noting that the global economic and financial crisis could have a serious effect on the socioeconomic development of the sub-region.

St. Kitts Nevis Opposition legislator Mark Brantley, who spoke on behalf of the sub-regional opposition grouping, used the occasion to plead for a more democratic process in the region.

He assured that while the cause of regional integration has the full support of the parliamentary opposition region, it was important to be accepted as “equal partners in the deepening and strengthening of our integration process”.

He warned against making the new Assembly a “forum for high sounding words and lengthy speeches when the harsh realities at home militate against good governance and democracy.

“Good governance at home has to be a prerequisite of good governance regionally. The parliamentary opposition cannot be included at the OECS Assembly in St. Johns but ignored or marginalised in Basseterre, Roseau, Road Town or The Valley,” Brantley said.

Brantley said that it is a matter of “tremendous regret” that some of the OECS countries still do not have Integrity in Public Life legislation or Freedom of Information legislation to give the populace a mechanism “to rein in the base impulse of governmental corruption.

“From Antigua to St. Kitts to Dominica to St. Lucia to St. Vincent… it seems that each round of elections is met by an equally acrimonious and expensive round of litigation,” said Brantley, noting that these election petitions prolong the electioneering well beyond the election cycle with its attendant debilitating effect on the psyche of the Eastern Caribbean people.

“In short, we must commit ourselves to strengthening our democratic traditions which makes us all strong at home and even stronger regionally,” he told the regional legislators.