Caribbean governments urged to set climate action agenda

From an article by Andrea Downer posted on Environmental News Service:

KINGSTON, Jamaica, April 9, 2008 (ENS) - Regional scientists are calling on Caribbean governments to help develop an emerging research and action agenda that will prepare the islands for the effects of climate change.

A preliminary agenda was reached after three teams of scientists carried out extensive research on climate change scenarios and modeling, coastal, marine and terrestrial biodiversity in the region.

Fined tuned at a two-day workshop hosted by the Trinidad-based Caribbean Natural Resource Institute at the University of the West Indies, Mona, the agenda identifies gaps in existing capacity in the region to deal with the effects of climate change and outlines measures to correct those deficiencies. . . .

The preliminary agenda urges action on:

* Facilitating community involvement in the research process
* Fostering linkages between biodiversity conservation and traditional use
* Researching how to establish a regional system of protected areas that facilitate effective biodiversity conservation and sustainable livelihoods under climate change/variability
* Research that moves from generating climate scenarios to projected impact on ecosystem services including socio-economic valuations
* Developing protocols and agreements for data sharing and access
* Developing a Caribbean climate atlas
* Investigating how key species will respond to changes in temperature
* Research on how to strengthen the resilience of regional ecosystems to adapt to climate change . . .