1. Page 1 Registration Number: 150135133
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
In order to promote the integration of EbA
into national policy, the following should be
considered:
● Integration is highly dependent on
building people’s capacity to understand
and implement EbA (UNEP, 2015) .
● Policy is influenced by engaging
policymakers and widely sharing
information, rather than economic
valuations (Waite et al., 2015).
● Climate practitioners must effectively
communicate EbA and its benefits to a
wide base of stakeholders to ensure that
information about EbA is accessible to
many different sectors.
● Ecosystem based adaptation approaches
are largely compartmentalised as
environmental solutions, and would
benefit from the creation of policies that
combine climate change co-ordination
with ecosystem management practices.
● EbA should be considered within all policy
processes including disaster risk
reduction, poverty alleviation and
economic reforms.
● Using existing national policy processes
would be more efficient than the creation
of new ones that focus only on
adaptation (UNEP, 2015) .
‘THE PRESENCE OF ABSENCE’:
Challenges of integrating ecosystem-based adaptation approaches
into national policy in the Caribbean
Restoration of mangrove forests have been proposed as
an ecosystem-based adaptation measure in response to
rising sea levels and storm surges.
POLICY BRIEF
(continued on page 2)
INTRODUCTION
Small island developing states (SIDS) are
most vulnerable to the effects of global
climate change due to a number of socio-
economic and environmental factors
including susceptibility to natural hazards,
limited human capital, small lands masses
and heavy dependence on foreign markets.
Key concerns in the Caribbean are: sea level
rise by 0.5 metres; increased sea surface
warming and the associated increased
frequency of storms and hurricanes; and a 5
-6% decrease in rainfall with prolonged
drought.
These projections can negatively impact
economic activity in the Region because
over 43 million people live in the Caribbean
and approximately 70% of these live within
1.5km of the coast along with the majority
of social infrastructure (Mimura et al.,
2007). Even small increases in sea level can
have severe impacts on coastal assets
resulting in the loss of millions of dollars
from tourism revenues. Caribbean tourism
provides approximately 2 million jobs,
accounting for 12.9% of regional
employment, and represents 14.8% of
Caribbean GDP (WTTC, 2016). Since tourism
is heavily reliant on healthy ecosystems,
SIDS have used sustainable environmental
management to secure their continued
economic growth (UNEP, 2008).
ECOSYSTEM BASED ADAPTATION
EbA is an adaptation strategy that uses the
conservation and restoration of ecosystems
to help people adapt to the negative
impacts of climate change (UNEP, 2016). In
SIDS, ecosystems such as mangrove forests
and coral reefs protect coastlines from
storms by dissipating wave energy, making
them a low cost alternative to hard
structures such as sea walls, however many
policy makers have not integrated the use of
EbA measures into policy, preferring
engineered solutions instead (Rizvi, Baig,
and Verdone, 2015).
“Sustainable environmental
management has been the
driving factor for the continued
economic growth of these SIDS ”
- UNEP, 2008
(c)GoogleImages2016
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) has been proposed as a low cost climate change
adaptation strategy for Small Island Developing States, however, it has not been widely
integrated into Caribbean national policy, with decision makers preferring to implement
“hard” engineered solutions like sea walls, rather than using soft ones like wetlands,
mangrove forests and coral reefs, because of claims of knowledge gaps regarding the
economic benefits provided by EbA projects. This brief seeks to highlight some of the
barriers and opportunities to integration that Caribbean nations face, and reports on this
through the analysis of 40 policy documents and a key informant interview from seven
Caribbean nations: the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia and
Suriname.

2. Page 2 Registration Number: 150135133
POLICY BRIEF
REFERENCES
1. Mimura, N., L. Nurse, R.F. McLean, J. Agard, L. Briguglio, P. Lefale, R. Payet and G. Sem.
(2007) Small Islands. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.
Contribution of working group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
UK, 687-716.
2. Rizvi, A.R., Baig, S., Verdone, M. (2015). Ecosystems Based Adaptation: Knowledge Gaps
in Making an Economic Case for Investing in Nature Based Solutions for Climate
Change. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. [online] pp. 48 Available at http://cmsdata.iucn.org/
downloads/the_economic_case_for_eba__en_1.pdf [Accessed 21 Apr. 2016].
3. UNEP (ed.) (2008) Climate change in the Caribbean and the challenge of adaptation.
Available at: http://www.pnuma.org/deat1/pdf/
Climate_Change_in_the_Caribbean_Final_LOW20oct.pdf [Accessed: 30 August 2016].
4. UNEP.org. (2016). UNEP - Climate Change - Adaptation - Ecosystem-Based Adaptation.
[online] Available at: http://unep.org/climatechange/adaptation/
EcosystemBasedAdaptation/tabid/29583/Default.aspx [Accessed 21 Aug. 2016].
5. Waite, R., Kushner, B., Jungwiwattanaporn, M., Gray, E. and Burke, L. (2015). Use of
coastal economic valuation in decision making in the Caribbean: Enabling conditions
and lessons learned. Ecosystem Services, [online] 11, pp.45-55. Available at: http://
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212041614000813 [Accessed 12 Aug.
2016].
6. WTTC. (2016). WTTC Data Gateway. [online] Available at: http://www.wttc.org/
datagateway/ [Accessed 16 Aug. 2016].
7. UNEP. (2015). Step 7: Capacity building and mainstreaming. [online] Coastal Ecosystem-
Based Adaptation. Available at: http://web.unep.org/coastal-eba/es/node/61
[Accessed 4 Sep. 2016].
THE WORLD BANK, CLIMATE FINANCE AND EbA
The World Bank sits as the interim trustee of the Green Climate Fund.
Several developing countries are concerned about this because the
Bank continues to invest in fossil fuels on one hand, while calling for
climate action on the next; suggesting that the Bank is much more
concerned with economic growth than arresting climate change.
Since Caribbean governments are heavily dependent on the Green
Climate Fund for achieving their mitigation and adaptation goals, it is
possible that the Bank can undermine the development interests of
states in response to climate change, and thus deter EbA projects.
MOVING FORWARD
Integration of EbA into national policy is met with many challenges,
but starting to link EbA with the successes of ecosystem based
management could be a useful step towards formally integrating the
two concepts. Changing perceptions of climate change through
education will also aid in creating an integrated national approach to
adaptation and finally, engaging stakeholders and increasing access
to EbA project results will reduce knowledge gaps surrounding EbA
effectiveness and will assist in changing policy.
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTEGRATION
Integrating climate change adaptation into national policies
discourages adaptation policies from becoming fragmented and shifts
responsibility from individual ministries to all sectors of Government),
however documentary analysis revealed that EbA approaches were
absent in six of the seven countries in the study, but ecosystem
management policies were present in all countries. The challenges to
integrating EbA into Caribbean national policy are discussed in Table
1.
Barrier/Opportunity Key Findings
BARRIER: climate change
peripheral to economic
development as a priority
 EbA not given same focus as energy security or
disaster management, due to the lack of
adequate data on the economic effectiveness of
EbA (Rizvi, Baig, and Verdone, 2015)
 Lack of knowledge of EbA because it is a new
area of climate change adaptation
BARRIER: climate change
framed as an
environmental problem
instead of a socio-
economic one
 Dominant narrative framing climate discourse
for the past decade, refers to climate change as
one of the worst environmental problems that
Mankind has ever faced (UNEP, 2016).
 Climate communications authored by the
Ministries of Agriculture or Environment in all
seven study countries
 Ignores the social and economic impacts of
climate change
 Governments focus on environmental fixes
rather than integrated national approaches
BARRIER: belief that
policymakers base
decisions solely on
economic interests
 Economic valuations play a role in decision
making but stakeholder engagement, and
strategies to educate about climate change
were more important in influencing policy
(Waite et al., 2015)
BARRIER: insufficient
funding to support
adaptation and mitigation
goals
 Lack of funding is a direct result of developed
nations failing to fulfill their commitments to
global climate finance funds
 Majority of financing for Latin America and the
Caribbean approved for larger Latin American
economies because of a lack of capacity in the
Caribbean
 Denying approval for Caribbean projects, which
include capacity building, is counterintuitive
and raises questions about the balance of
power between Caribbean SIDS and
international funding agencies
OPPORTUNITY & BARRIER:
Caribbean Community
Climate Change Centre
acting as an accredited
entity of the Green Climate
Fund
 Caribbean governments to access climate
finance for projects more easily
 However, amounts pledged to the Fund not
committed
 Projects must be evaluated by the Fund before
receiving funding
 CCCCC able to disburse funds but not in control
of the funding budget
OPPORTUNITY: EbA not
new concept
 EbA is the successor of Ecosystem
management , with the shift in discourse being
used to draw attention to climate change
adaptation
 EbA and Ecosystem management have similar
objectives
 All countries in the study have ecosystem
management plans in existence, on which EbA
policies could be built
Table 1 - Barriers and Opportunities for the integration of EbA into
national policy in the Caribbean.