ROAD TOWN, British Virgin Islands, CMC—Environmental ministers from the Organisation of Japanese Caribbean States (OECS) will start a two-day assembly on Wednesday to debate local weather change, biodiversity conservation, sustainable vitality, and waste administration.
The eleventh Council of Ministers Assembly on Environmental Sustainability (COM: ES11) might be held beneath the theme “From Aspiration to Centered ACTION.” The organizers stated it could enable delegates to strategize and make collective choices among the many member states of the OECS to advance the implementation of the St. George’s Declaration of Rules for Environmental Sustainability.
The declaration contains minimizing environmental vulnerability, bettering environmental administration, and defending the area’s useful resource base for optimum social and financial advantages.
“Internet hosting COM: ES 11 within the Virgin Islands is a major alternative for our area to debate important environmental points and collaborate on sustainable options. The Virgin Islands is dedicated to advocating for environmental sustainability within the Caribbean and past,” stated Premier and Minister of Finance, Pure Assets and Local weather Change, Dr. Natalio Wheatley.
The St. Lucia-based OECS Fee stated that this 12 months’s assembly would be the first to take inventory of actions and partnerships in assist of progress alongside the Roadmap to 2030, which was endorsed in July 2023 at COM:ES 10 in Anguilla, with its six technical thematic priorities. Ministers will take into account suggestions from the newly established Ministerial-led Standing Committees on cross-cutting and enabling themes and complementary contributions from aligned Companions.
“On the heels of the lately concluded fourth Worldwide Convention on Small Island Creating States (SIDS4), COM: ES 11 will characteristic a panel of ministers and key specialists, who will deep-dive on the implications for and positioning of the OECS area in implementing and leveraging of the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS (ABAS) in the direction of resilient prosperity, by way of environmental sustainability,” the Fee stated.
The OECS will concurrently host its annual Environmental Sustainability Exhibition on the H. Lavity Stoutt Neighborhood Faculty auditorium from July 2 to 4.
The exhibition will characteristic digital actuality emersion, instructional movies, informational spreads, and shows on local weather resilience, environmental administration, ocean, and biodiversity, to call a number of.
This 12 months, the OECS Fee has additionally partnered with The Hydrous, a non-profit group on a mission to encourage ocean empathy and marine stewardship, to conduct a examine on the effectiveness of utilizing digital actuality expertise to succeed in college students, policymakers, and different stakeholders.
“This convention and exhibition underscore our dedication to environmental sustainability and the way forward for our area. The efforts made by officers throughout the Civil Service are really commendable,” stated Dr. Ronald Smith-Berkeley, Everlasting Secretary within the Ministry of Setting, Pure Assets, and Local weather Change.
The European Union is supporting the assembly right here by way of the BioSpace and Built-in Panorama Administration tasks, two initiatives that search to preserve marine and terrestrial biodiversity and optimize land’s contribution to agriculture, meals safety, local weather change mitigation, and adaptation, and the preservation of ecosystems and the important companies they supply.
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