PM unveils plan to guard coastlines and biodiversity

Barbados is set to renew a five-year National Strategic Biodiversity and Action Plan and establish the Barbados Oceans and Coastal Authority in the coming months to ramp up work to protect the island’s coastlines from erosion.

The announcement was made by Prime Minister Mia Mottley while addressing the Global Biodiversity Alliance Summit 2025 in Guyana on Wednesday.

Mottley told the gathering that having already settled the plan for 2020-2025, “we will be renewing it as we go forward to 2030.”

“We have also settled six missions between now and 2030; and it is of note, that the first one is maintaining on our land and in our marine environment, a clean, beautiful and healthy environment, without which, the possibility of life, the quiet enjoyment of our environment and indeed, prosperity of our people will be impossible,” the prime minister told the summit held under the theme The State of Biodiversity, Progress, Challenges and Opportunities.

Mottley also said that, in addition to the recently reopened Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary, the country will be restoring the remaining wetlands across the island, many of which have been destroyed.

The prime minister said the Barbados Oceans and Coastal Authority, which will be established by an act of Parliament within the next few months, will assist in preserving the island’s biodiversity.

She said the draft bill has been completed and is now being presented to Cabinet.

“This will allow us to elevate the work that we must do to preserve our coastal areas; one, from the erosion of Sargassum, which is deadly on our eastern coast; but two, also from the natural erosion that is taking place as a result of agricultural run-offs and other factors, and which threaten what is our greatest concern,” Mottley said.

She pointed out that there were several negative effects from coastal erosion and the government had to move swiftly to “get on top of it” to prevent salt water intrusion into the island’s aquifers.

“We recognise that in the same way we have an institution to fix and build roads, build bridges and to deal with drainage on a daily basis, there must be a similar institution to protect our coastal areas, our oceans and, by extension, the significant amount of marine life that is there,” Mottley stressed.

She said while it may be important to explore and exploit marine resources, it should not be done recklessly or at the expense of the marine environment.

Mottley informed the gathering that Barbados was also pursuing international innovation in climate finance, having completed a “blue bond” debt-for-nature swap with help from the Inter-American Development Bank and The Nature Conservancy.

Over the next 15 years, dependent on the movement and the yield of bonds, Mottley said that the country was expected to “save somewhere between US$50-60 million and that the money would be used to capitalise the Barbados Marine Sustainability Trust which will seek to ensure that 30 per cent of our marine area becomes a marine protective area or roughly about 55 000 square metres.

“These conversations are not academic…they are real.  They will determine what kind of livelihoods our people will have, what percentage of our national budget must go to recovering from climate crises, or biodiversity loss… and what kind of economic and social stability our countries can maintain,” Prime Minister Mottley stressed. (EJ)