Editor’s Be aware: This text was first revealed on GLP Movies’ web site and was written by Mia Taylor.
It was one other stunning day on South Caicos Island, and I sat immersed within the far-flung, Caribbean island tranquility I had come to search out.
Positioned 81 kilometers away from the way more well-known Providenciales (the principle island within the Turks and Caicos archipelago), South Caicos is an 8-square-mile outcropping that is house to only two resorts and roughly 1,139 individuals.
The sparse inhabitants and lack of improvement have been precisely what attracted me to South Caicos. I would come in the hunt for a nature-filled retreat someplace distant sufficient to supply ample stretches of unspoiled nature, the place I may fill my days with lengthy, quiet walks.
However as I sat consuming my lunch one afternoon at one of many two resorts on South Caicos, I could not assist however discover the gorgeous, delicate fowl that had simply flown overhead.
The fowl had an extended piece of plastic entangled round its leg, trailing behind it because it flew, not all that in contrast to small airplanes that tow banner ads by the skies of their wake.
It was a jarring second, however one which bolstered what I already deeply understood: There isn’t any escaping the injury people are doing to the planet. Upon deeper reflection, nevertheless, I additionally realized that the second illustrated the immense complexity of the issues at hand.
The truth is that nations positioned all through the Caribbean should not the first drivers of the various challenges the planet faces. But, they’re those bearing the brunt of the numerous methods people are laying waste to the Earth. Due to that, native governments throughout the Caribbean have needed to work twice as exhausting to guard their nations and their individuals.
That has included adapting to the brutal, existential risk posed by local weather change and the various challenges it brings with it, resembling sea stage rise and more and more extreme climate occasions. As well as, the area is grappling with numerous different points – from plastic air pollution to waste disposal and recycling challenges.
It additionally can’t be missed that this can be a area the place tourism and the regular inflow of tourists are each crucial to financial prosperity and are making most of the regional challenges extra urgent and sophisticated.
Amid this backdrop, I just lately launched into a sequence of conversations with a handful of native leaders within the Caribbean, hoping to study extra about how they’re dealing with a few of these extremely daunting points.
Admittedly, the questions I got here asking are so complicated and nuanced that volumes might be written on the subject. Nonetheless, the conversations I used to be fortunate to have, even when they merely scratched the floor, supplied a vivid and compelling snapshot of a few of the methods the Caribbean is addressing the challenges dealing with the planet at this second in time.
Nevis: On the Entrance Traces of a Struggle, it Did not Begin
A 36-square-mile island that sits south of Puerto Rico and west of Antigua, Nevis has proudly dubbed itself the “Queen of the Caribees.” It is a title meant to underscore Nevis’ unspoiled atmosphere and distinctive old-Caribbean allure. You will not discover a single fast-food chain wherever on Nevis, nor any site visitors lights or buildings taller than a coconut tree.
What you’ll find is historic rainforest, secluded seashores, and mountains, together with Nevis Peak, a 3,232-foot dormant volcano that defines the island’s panorama. Native officers in Nevis have been working diligently to guard all that makes their nation particular.
“The management in Nevis may be very clear in partaking in sustainable practices. Making an attempt to guard the island. Shield our wildlife. Shield our individuals. And guarantee we protect our lifestyle,” Nevis Premier Mark Brantley advised me.
It is an effort made more and more daunting amid the impacts of local weather change, which Brantley mentioned is without doubt one of the most important issues the area faces.
“We’re on the entrance traces of a conflict we by no means began,” Brantley mentioned. “Frankly, we discover ourselves being threatened existentially in circumstances the place we’re the victims of local weather change. We’re not the reason for local weather change.”
Nations like america and people all through Europe went by an industrial revolution throughout the 1700s and 1800s and reaped the wealth and spoils of that improvement, Brantley identified. The Caribbean, in the meantime, is paying the worth for “first world” industrialization with out having shared within the rewards.
“I gave a speech on the United Nations Common Meeting in 2017, and I mentioned ‘Within the Caribbean, we’re being requested to money a examine we didn’t write,’” Brantley defined. “What I used to be searching for to convey is that in a really actual sense, we’re being requested to hold the burden of local weather change. However by no means bought any of the advantages.”
Bearing the brunt of a worsening international downside, Caribbean nations are grappling with rising oceans, coastal erosion, and seashores commonly flooded with sargassum, that are the plenty of unpleasant and foul-smelling brown seaweed pushed by local weather change and the elevated stage of vitamins launched into the ocean amid deforestation of the Amazon.
Every of those developments poses an actual risk to an trade that’s the fundamental financial pillar for a lot of the Caribbean: Tourism. Guests flock to the area for solar, sand, and sea.
Sea stage rise alone has the facility to influence that attraction.
“Our tourism infrastructure is alongside our coasts. And that is not simply in Nevis and St. Kitts, however in the whole area,” mentioned Brantley. “Quite a lot of [the region’s] infrastructure is on the ocean,” he continued, mentioning that just some toes of ocean stage rise would obliterate” some islands. “The Bahamas, Anguilla, low-lying islands like these, that are well-known for his or her seashores, are simply atolls within the ocean.”
Native Options to World Issues
Brantley is fast to level out, nevertheless, that there is solely room for optimism on this battle. To that finish, Nevis has been busy charting its personal course in response to most of the issues at hand. That has included transitioning to renewable sources of energy to assist handle local weather change, whereas additionally tackling a few of the different challenges inextricably linked to the tourism trade, resembling water shortage and pervasive plastic air pollution.
One of many steps Nevis has taken to make sure ample water provides is the event of two solar-powered desalination crops, considered one of which is already commissioned and producing water. As well as, the island has been tapping into underground aquifers as one other supply of water. Nevis additionally raised the price of water for residents to encourage conservation. Due to this trio of efforts, Nevis doesn’t face the identical water shortages that influence different nations within the area.
As for plastic air pollution, a problem that will increase exponentially wherever there are vacationers, Nevis has labored to aggressively discourage single-use plastics. Supermarkets and eating places, as an example, should not allowed to offer plastic baggage, utensils, or straws. Coping with waste as a small island nation can also be a major regional downside. In Nevis’ case, the nation has partnered with Taiwan to ascertain a complete recycling program, mentioned Brantley.
“Something plastic, we’re crushing it, baling it, and transport it off-island,” he continued. “Thus far, we’ve shipped a number of 40-foot containers of plastics off this island, and we proceed to do extra. We simply invested in a much bigger facility. So, we’re tackling it very, very aggressively.”
Nevis’ tourism mannequin can also be considerate and deliberate to assist defend the nation’s assets and keep away from a few of the challenges related to mass tourism. “We’re not a cruise vacation spot, within the traditional sense. We resisted the group,” mentioned Brantley, who defined that the most important ship that visits Nevis every year has simply 900 passengers. Ships carrying 20,000 individuals don’t port in Nevis.
“We attempt to go after the highest one p.c of the market. Our tourism mannequin is high-yield, low-impact,” he added. “We choose 100 friends paying $1,000 an evening than 1,000 friends paying $100 an evening. So, we do not have to deal with a few of these points that mass tourism causes as a result of we’re not a mass tourism vacation spot.”
As essential and useful as these efforts are, the larger challenges related to local weather change proceed to loom giant within the Caribbean. On this level, Brantley is considerably introspective.
“For a really very long time, we in our area sought to attraction to the morality of the First World. We sought to say to them, ‘Hey, this can be a downside you brought about, it’s best to actually assist us out.’ However I’ve mentioned to colleagues across the area that received’t work. It shouldn’t be couched in phrases that say: ‘You brought about this downside, so you should repair it,’” Brantley advised me.
“What we’ve to indicate the world is that while the Caribbean and Pacific and locations like that discover themselves on the entrance line, local weather change is in the end going to influence everyone,” he concluded. “We could be the primary in line. And we could also be on the entrance traces. However definitely, local weather change goes to have an effect on the whole planet. Folks should be made to know that it’s everyone’s greatest curiosity to take care of this downside.”
Antigua and Barbuda: Creating Resiliency Amid Challenges
The local weather ambassador for the federal government of Antigua and Barbuda, Ruleta Camacho-Thomas, was within the midst of attending COP30 in Brazil when she and I managed to attach.
Throughout a break from the busy international discussion board, which she identified is without doubt one of the few locations the place the voices of nations like hers may be heard, Camacho-Thomas underscored most of the similar themes and challenges as Brantley, together with sea stage rise, extreme storms pushed by local weather change, water shortage, plastic air pollution, and extra.
Like Nevis, officers in Antigua and Barbuda have been busy working to deal with these points.
In response to sea stage rise and storm occasions, as an example, Antigua and Barbuda has enshrined resilience measures into constructing codes for coastal properties.
“What we’ve realized all through the Caribbean is that nature helps defend, however you too can apply good, sound engineering to assist nature,” mentioned Camacho-Thomas. “So, after we have a look at improvement in Antigua and Barbuda…we help nature’s resilience, and we additionally combine resiliency into the kinds of buildings which can be constructed.”
“If you wish to stroll out your door and put your toes within the sand, it’s possible you’ll simply should stroll a bit of additional,” Camacho-Thomas defined. “It is a part of the long-term resilience planning that individuals want to concentrate on.”
Antigua and Barbuda’s constructing necessities make it considerably tougher for builders to get by the native planning and approval course of, however Camacho-Thomas mentioned that is as a result of the nation is working to make sure that properties constructed immediately are nonetheless standing in 50 years amid the realities of local weather change.
One other problem pushed partly by local weather change, Antigua and Barbuda is without doubt one of the most water-stressed nations within the Caribbean. And tourism provides strain to that actuality. “One of many issues individuals do not understand is that the tourism trade takes quite a lot of water. Antigua and Barbuda has one hundred pc desalinated water,” defined Camacho-Thomas.
This is a vital level and one which shouldn’t be missed. In 2025, Antigua opened two new seawater desalination crops, which collectively can produce as much as 3 million gallons of ingesting water day by day for the nation. The crops use seawater reverse osmosis know-how to transform seawater into protected ingesting water—a step that not solely strengthens the nation’s local weather change resilience, however makes it climate impartial, guaranteeing water is obtainable to the island no matter rainfall patterns.
Antigua and Barbuda’s response to water scarcity points has additionally included permitting each giant property to have its personal desalination plant to additional guarantee ample water provides.
Dying coral reefs globally provide one more regionally felt instance of the fallout from local weather change. The world’s coral reefs simply crossed a crucial thermal threshold or tipping level on account of warming ocean temperatures. In consequence, warm-water reefs are experiencing widespread die-offs. They’re the primary ecosystem on Earth to have handed that planetary tipping level.
For Antigua and Barbuda, a spot with 365 seashores and related coral reefs that vacationers flock to expertise (and for all the Caribbean), this improvement is deeply vital. “When guests are going out, we’re asking them to bear in mind and perceive that this can be the final time they’re seeing a coral reef,” mentioned Camacho-Thomas. “That is the state of affairs we face.”
“Now we have some coral nurseries round which can be doing coral conservation. And we encourage guests after they come to ask to go and see the nurseries, in order that they will see what we’re doing,” added Camacho-Thomas, who additionally identified that vacationers might help by sporting reef-safe sunscreens when visiting the area, that are biodegradable and created from minerals, as a substitute of chemical substances that hurt marine life.
“What we have to do is keep away from including any further pressures to the ecosystems which can be being threatened by local weather change,” she mentioned.
Main the Cost on Plastic Air pollution
Years in the past, in an effort to assist deal with pervasive plastic air pollution within the area, Antigua and Barbuda handed a plastic bag ban. The nation additionally went additional and prohibited styrofoam containers.
“So, you must use paper plates, paper cups, and paper containers, that are extra environmentally pleasant. That is one of many concrete steps we’re taking,” mentioned Camacho-Thomas. “That feeds into addressing air pollution of the ocean and straight connects to tourism.”
Governments all through the Caribbean have additionally been main the cost on the necessity to enact a worldwide plastics treaty to control plastic utilization worldwide. It is a crucial concern to the area due to the very actual impacts the Caribbean faces associated to plastic waste on its shores and past. “We really drive this course of. It is small island growing states which have made the distinction in asking for ambition [about a global plastics treaty], as a result of these issues have an effect on us most,” she mentioned.
Antigua and Barbuda’s sustainability efforts additionally prolong to the way in which the nation promotes itself to guests. Tourism messaging is supposed to draw a extra considerate kind of customer, one searching for a deeper expertise of the nation.
“The seaside is just the start [in Antigua and Barbuda],” mentioned Camacho-Thomas. “We’re additionally ensuring we’re selling regionally produced, community-based merchandise. So, we’re actually selling interplay with native micro-businesses as a part of the expertise. We’re additionally selling interplay with our native meals tradition and our artwork tradition. So, the way in which we design our bundle is to encourage guests who’ve that mindset, who would need to work together with native tradition, native artwork, and native meals.”
Dangers Past Native Management
Nonetheless, like with Brantley, the dialog inevitably returned to the looming threats of local weather change and the ramifications that native authorities officers merely haven’t any management over, which is a considerably extra weighty problem than points posed by tourism.
Camacho-Thomas provided a stark instance of why local weather change is by far the most important risk to the area: Simply earlier than our dialog, Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica, killing greater than 45 individuals and inflicting billions of {dollars} in injury. “That hurricane did extra injury than any tourism may have executed in 150 years,” she emphasised. “So, for us on this area, there is a stability. Our practitioners handle tourism…The larger downside is definitely the local weather impacts, that are exterior our management.”
“We don’t emit a excessive share of greenhouse gases. Even while you take the entire of the Caribbean collectively, it’s a share level of greenhouse gasoline emissions globally. It’s nothing. So, we are able to’t handle that concern. What we are able to do is handle the vacationers who’re coming. And we’ve managed it in a manner that enables us to learn from tourism and for that profit to trickle down and even go on to communities.”
After which Camacho-Thomas posed a query (rightly so) that deserves a response. The truth is, the response is lengthy overdue:
“No one is asking the developed world, ‘Are you stopping air pollution?’ ‘Are you chopping fossil fuels?’ Who’s asking them what they’re doing?” she mentioned. “Every particular person on our island has made a private dedication to deal with these points. And we’ve executed every thing we are able to with the assets we’ve. The problems we face now, the dangers we face now, should not brought on by us; they’re brought on by industries that proceed to pollute.”
South Caicos: A microcosm of worldwide points
My conversations with Brantley and Thomas touched upon expansive, deeply complicated international challenges. Every chief supplied essential examples of the efforts being undertaken regionally to deal with these points. And so they additionally highlighted severe shortcomings on the international stage that threaten the Caribbean.
Which brings me again to my retreat on that small island of South Caicos, the place I had traveled to flee all of it.
My son and I spent a number of days on the eco-resort Salterra, a regionally owned property that is a part of the Marriott model. The resort is led by a CEO, Michael Tibbetts, who’s dedicated to the local people’s well-being and to sustainability. When Salterra opened about 9 months in the past, it introduced ambitions to turn into a mannequin for sustainability within the Caribbean hospitality sector.
That effort has included partaking in a public-private partnership to put in a 400-kilowatt photo voltaic system on the resort’s rooftops that is meant to generate 700,000 kilowatt-hours yearly (in regards to the quantity of vitality consumed by 70 U.S. houses). The system is meant to offset about 20 p.c of resort emissions.
Salterra has additionally carried out water conservation measures and waste discount applications, together with eliminating single-use plastic water bottles on its property. Moreover, the resort companions with native non-profit organizations, resembling FisherFolk First, which works to assist set up sustainable, small-scale fisheries. Salterra’s purpose is to cut back reliance on imported seafood, which is usually the product of environmentally dangerous provide chains.
Because the resort’s director of sustainability, Camilo Arado Lilleslatten, advised me throughout one of many final days of my go to, Salterra needs to behave boldly with regards to defending the native atmosphere and group.
“We’re a brand new child on the block, however after we speak about sustainability, it is essential to speak about what we’re doing to alter the state of affairs and transfer the needle,” mentioned Arado Lilleslatten.
After which Arado Lilleslatten relays a narrative illustrating Salterra’s dedication to daring motion in South Caicos: When a neighboring resort made plans to dredge an unlawful canal into close by Admiral Cockburn Land and Sea Nationwide Park, which the federal government granted permission to do, Salterra stepped in and introduced the info of the state of affairs. The canal, Arado Lilleslatten defined, would have been devastating to the island’s fishing group. Salterra’s resolution to voice such issues helped to inspire a grassroots effort amongst native South Caicos residents, who additionally opposed the venture.
The outcome? The environmentally dangerous venture was dropped at a halt.
“Our purpose wasn’t to make it appear to be it was developer versus developer; we didn’t need that,” mentioned Arado Lilleslatten. “From an ecological standpoint, we have been attempting to emphasise the devastating impacts that dredging a canal would have on the ecosystem and financial system right here. The trade right here is fishing. So, in the event you destroy the ecosystems which can be supporting the livelihoods right here, it’s no good.”
In different phrases, Salterra is a property engaged on a number of ranges to assist be a part of the answer and handle most of the similar international points that Brantley and Camacho-Thomas raised.
There are additionally quite a few methods friends can expertise nature at Salterra, in order that they return house as ambassadors who perceive the significance of being aware stewards of the planet. That features having the ability to go to an area coral restoration facility that Salterra co-founded, the South Caicos Coral Reef Consortium. The consortium’s efforts embody establishing underwater coral nurseries and a coral lab. Lots of of corals have already been replanted alongside native reefs.
My son and I have been additionally capable of spend days with Salterra guides kayaking to distant cays and previous mangroves, marveling on the eagle rays and sting rays swimming beneath us. We pulled our kayaks up onto quiet sandbars to get a better have a look at the gorgeous, virtually ethereal tropical panorama surrounding us. On different days, we visited islands inhabited by iguanas or snorkeled above a few of the largest, most vibrant sea stars I’ve ever seen.
But, in most of the locations we went, plastic air pollution was current on some stage, a quiet reminder of the challenges at hand. There have been some stretches of seaside and rugged shorelines I explored on South Caicos, the place I discovered plastic air pollution of all sorts: Plastic crates, fishing traces, plastic bottles, plastic baggage, and extra.
As I walked in these locations, I understood extra clearly that that is considered one of many issues the worldwide group has introduced to those shores. And ultimately, I spotted that the questions I would come searching for solutions to, I actually ought to have been asking leaders in america, all through Europe, and past.
As Brantley and Camacho-Thomas made so very clear, the Caribbean is a area on the entrance traces of numerous challenges it didn’t provoke.
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