Visit to a group of fishers in Nippes, Haiti, building the capacity of fisherfolk to employ … [+] sustainable fishing practices. So far, 385 community members trained in natural resource management and 45 fishers trained in sustainable fishing techniques.
CORE RESPONSE HAITI
Conservationists in Haiti are helping communities and restoring mangroves in order to help climate adaption and increase biodiversity.
According to a 2020 study, between 2000 and 2016, human activity was the primary driver of mangrove area loss, with urbanization being a key factor. In Haiti, the total mangrove area decreased from 16,462 hectares in 1996 to 14,759 hectares in 2016.
Guy Cezil, an engineer-agronomist and a member of a local organization called the Marbial’s Sons and Friends Association (AFAM in French) has been working at Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) on an ecosystem-based adaptation project in the Nippes department in the south of Haiti.
Cezil says that there are two projects being implemented in the southern peninsula of Haiti to protect coastal and marine biodiversity by strengthening the resilience of ecosystems, particularly mangroves.
“Putting ecosystems in good health to provide equitable ecosystem services is the project’s main challenge, given the socio-economic vulnerability of the target communities, which are dependent on the natural resources available daily and require long-term economic support,” he says adding that in addition to the ecological restoration of watersheds and mangroves, the aim is to improve the livelihoods of farmers and fishermen throughout the green economy (agriculture and forestry) and blue economy (fisheries and marine value chains).
“Ecosystem-based adaptation implies the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services as part of a comprehensive adaptation strategy to help people adapt to the negative effects of climate change,” he says, adding that 385 community members were trained in natural resource management and 45 fishers were trained in sustainable fishing techniques.
“This approach offers many advantages in terms of sustainability and low costs for invaluable services,” Cezil says, “However, in the absence of sufficient relevant data on its effectiveness for widespread dissemination and application, it has not yet brought the desired change and hence there is a need to set up experimental sites to generate a database that can be used for cost-benefit analyses.”
Cezil explains that the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund is one of the financing mechanisms which, through its programs, provides funding for Ecosystem-Based Adaptation strategies as a holistic approach to provides solutions to the problems faced by countries like Haiti and since 2020, CORE has benefited from grants from CBF for the implementation of EBA projects.
Nursery preparation: the implementation of nature-based solutions and green infrastructure, like … [+] reforestation, to increase erosion prevention, reduce the frequency and intensity of flooding.
CORE
Growing Up in Haiti
Cezil was born on a farm in Marbial, a neighborhood in the commune of Jacmel in the south of the country.
“I’ve been passionate about agriculture since my childhood and I worked with my father on this farm, which is distinguished by its level of production,” he says, “This distinction is mainly linked to a livestock system we set up to use harvest residues and the production of manure to fertilize the soil.”
At the end of high school, he turned towards agronomy and in 2001, joined the Faculty of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine (FAMV in French) of the State University of Haiti (UHE in French) and after five years of studies, was qualified in the management of natural resources and the environment.
Cezil says that developing countries in the Global South are less developed economically and face many more difficulties in societal, political, economic, and environmental terms.
“To respond to these problems, scientists are developing new knowledge, which is also an important resource in enabling countries to compete on a global scale,” he says, “Every time a problem arises, scientists try to come up with solutions to improve living conditions, as in the case of the adverse effects of climate change.”
A small boat tied to the mangroves in Boucan Noel, Haiti, on August 19, 2021. (Jose A. Iglesias/El … [+] Nuevo Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
TNS
Mangroves Hidden in Plain Sight
Elsewhere in the Carribean, Karla Ramírez-Ruiz, a master’s student of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Tropical Biodiversity and Ecosystem (TROPIMUNDO) helped find a rare species of mangrove hidden in plain sight near the bustling city of Cartagena.
Ramírez-Ruiz says that researchers were looking at records of the Piñuelo mangrove (Pelliciera spp.), a very rare and endangered genus of mangroves that occur in limited stands found in South and Central America.
“Soon, we realize that most of the 20th century historical records of Pelliciera spp. in Colombia were in Cartagena city and other urban areas in the Caribbean,” she says, adding that the researchers began to see cities more as highly human-modified ecosystems.
Ramírez-Ruiz explains that her current main scientific question focuses on the effects of urbanization and fragmentation on mangrove forest ecosystems in the context of climate change.
“Urbanization has been overlooked by biologists, despite cities are driving rapid eco-evolutionary changes on organisms living in and besides them,” she says, adding that the impacts of urbanization, such as habitat fragmentation, are likely to interact with the effects of climate change to drive additional landscape change.
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Publish date : 2024-08-18 07:00:00
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