NATION NEWS
'Region must look to reduce disaster risk'
Published on: 12/13/07.

by TREVOR YEARWOOD IT MAY BE a favourite haunt for tourists, but the Caribbean is physically vulnerable to hurricanes, earthquakes, landslides and other threats and has to focus on reducing the risk of disaster.

IT MAY BE a favourite haunt for tourists, but the Caribbean is physically vulnerable to hurricanes, earthquakes, landslides and other threats and has to focus on reducing the risk of disaster.

This is the message which CARICOM Secretary-General Dr Edwin Carrington brought to a regional conference on disaster management continuing today at Hilton Barbados.

Hurricanes, floods, landslides, droughts, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions were the common threats CARICOM member states face, Carrington said in his address Tuesday night.

Virtually all of these were worsened "by the impact of climate change, including sea-level rise", he said.

He was underscoring the need for detailed planning to reduce the risk of, and the impact from, such threats.

The challenges posed by the region's vulnerability acutely brought home "the need for us in the Caribbean to heed the calls for disaster management and adaptation, particularly in the face of climate change", he told the gathering.

He said that while CARICOM nations were among those "who contribute the least to climate change", they "regrettably are among the most affected by it".

He added: "The effects of climate change, including global warming, ruthlessly expose our vulnerability."

Scientists have listed a rise in sea levels and the possibility of flooding of low-lying regions in the Caribbean and elsewhere among the threats posed by climate change.

Noting that a large part of the Caribbean's all-important tourist industry was located in the coastal zone, Carrington said the effects of climate change could be even more devastating.

The second Caribbean Conference on Comprehensive Disaster Management had the theme: The Changing Landscape Of Disaster Management: Vision Becoming Reality.

The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA), the Department of Emergency Management, and the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management in Trinidad and Tobago are among the agencies represented.

The conference, and an exhibition running alongside it, have attracted a wide range of expertise with a bearing on disaster risk reduction and management.

CDERA co-ordinator Jeremy Collymore said the conference was in a sense "a parliament of the disaster risk reduction actors".

He told delegates: "This forum will give us an opportunity to look at our progress (on comprehensive disaster management), share experiences and discuss challenges."

Outgoing head of the Delegation of the European Commission, Ambassador Amos Tincani, said the European Union had committed 3.4 million euros to CDERA's institutional strengthening and capacity-building programme.

He described this as "the most important intervention" for Europe, which had funded many disaster-related programmes in the last two to three years in Grenada and other regional countries.