In this episode we will discuss coastal zone management, sustainable development, and social and gender impact assessment in Barbados.

Vulnerability, adaptation, and coastal zone management
Blue Economy and sustainable tourism in Barbados
Social and gender impact assessment

Our guest Dr Janice Cumberbatch is a Lecturer of Social and Environmental Management at the University of West Indies at Cave Hill, Barbados. She has over 30 years professional experience in participatory research, environmental management, social and gender impact assessment, heritage tourism management, meeting facilitation and training. She has also published several articles in the areas of environmental management, climate change, social planning and sustainable development. Her research is focused on participatory approaches to social and gender impact assessment; Investigations of social and gender resilience in climate change and disaster risk management; and Applications of change management in the public sector and in civil society groups.

Our interviewer Shifali Mathews is a PhD student in Environmental Health and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on using environmental epidemiological methods to promote health equity and environmental justice in the era of a changing climate.

Episode notes and references:

Unleashing the blue economy of the Eastern Caribbean
Case Study Barbados: Policy, practice and science: perspectives on climate change and tourism in Barbados – conflict or congruence?
Tourism in the Caribbean and the Blue Economy: Can the two be aligned? (Chapter 11 in The Caribbean Blue Economy)

Music by: Ritesh Prasanna

Audio editing and transcripts by: Paras Singh and Raag Sethi

Podcast website: https://atmospherictales.com

Transcript:

JC: Janice Cumberbatch (Guest)

SM: Shifali Mathews (Interviewer)

SG: Shahzad Gani (Host)

SG: Welcome to Atmospheric Tales, a podcast that amplifies stories and experiences related to air pollution and climate change from around the world.

I’m your host, Shahzad Gani, and welcome to another episode of the Atmospheric Tales. Our guest today is a lecturer of Social and Environmental Management at the University of West Indies at Cave Hill, Barbados. She has over 30 years of professional experience in participatory research, environmental management, social and gender impact assessment, heritage tourism management, meeting facilitation, and training. She has also published several articles in the areas of environmental management, climate change, social planning, and sustainable development. Her research is focused on participatory approaches to social and gender impact assessment, investigations of social and gender resilience in climate change and disaster risk management, and applications of climate change management in public sector and civil society groups. I’m excited to welcome our guest, Dr. Janice Cumberbatch.

Our interviewer today is Shefali Matthews, who is a PhD student in Environmental Health and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on using environmental epidemiological methods to promote health equity and environmental justice in the era of a changing climate. Welcome to the show, Janice and Shefali!

SM: Thank you so much for the introduction, Shahzad, and welcome to the show, Janice!

JC: Thank you very much for having me.

SM: I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to discuss your perspectives on social and environmental management, which really brings together multiple disciplines to solve critical issues in people’s daily lives. In particular, I’m excited to learn about your expertise in the blue economy, and participatory processes, as well as heritage tourism management and coastal zone management in Barbados, and in the Caribbean region. Barbados, like other Caribbean countries, is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as sea level rise, ocean acidification, and more frequent and intense natural disasters, such as hurricanes, to name a few. Could you elaborate on how these effects can impact the lives of the inhabitants, and the economic activities of the country?

JC: Certainly, no problem at all! Thanks very much for giving me the opportunity to discuss these issues. So one of the features that’s really critical to dealing with the fact that we’re so vulnerable to climate change, is that we must have effective early warning systems; and, that seems straightforward, like, just have an early warning system. But, the truth of the matter is that, it has to be diverse; I just had a student who did research on this. You’ve got a heterogeneous population, you’ve got people who are of different ages, genders, socio-economic levels, different capacities. So, when you want to put an early warning system in place, you have to consider what are the diverse ways you have to use to get people informed. Apps are really wonderful; and that might work with the modern, you know, Gen Z population, but the older folk are still listening to the radio. So, we actually have to be very diverse in designing early warning systems. But then we have to think about things such as insurance, because trying to address vulnerability means that you have to put something in place for people who might not be able to prepare very well, and they need to recover, and some of the most vulnerable populations don’t have what they need to recover; and, insurance is a primary example of that. There are still sectors such as the fishing sector where people are unable to ensure their boats and their gear. In that regard, we’re really happy to have the CCRIF, because what the CCRIF does, and by the CCRIF, I’m talking about the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility—they have made it possible for, first of all, governments to have premiums that allow them to apply for relief in the aftermath of something like a hurricane, so that timeframe that governments took to recover from a bad event. And you know, we have bad events regularly in terms of hurricanes in the Caribbean; we are one of the most disaster-prone regions, in that regard. Governments can now, based on the premium they have with the CCRIF, they can now apply for and get a cash injection to start the process of cleanup and recovery, getting utilities back in place and the like. But more importantly, what CCRIF has also done is put some other products in place; the one that I particularly like is the one that we call the COAST—the Caribbean Ocean and Aquaculture Sustainable FaciliTy, and that one targets the very vulnerable, especially the fishing communities, to help them in the aftermath again, of an event, to recover. So we have to think about products like the CCRIF and its other elements such as COAST, and how we can expand on those; we need to understand how we can get the mainstream financial institutions and insurance institutions to come on board so that these vulnerable communities like fishing communities, can better be prepared to respond in the event of a hurricane or a volcano. So yeah, we’re very vulnerable, but we have had some opportunities through, as I said, the Caribbean Catastrophic Risk Insurance Facility and its other products to help governments and vulnerable communities respond better; and, you know, we are working on getting things like early warning systems set up properly, so that it doesn’t just target a few, but it gets to everybody, understanding the diversity within our populations. If we don’t do things like that, then you know, we take really long to recover; governments are then plagued with trying to find ways to support the most vulnerable. Barbados experienced hurricane Elsa, I think it was back in 2019 perhaps and I may have that year wrong, I’ll have to check; but it was a few years ago, and the government is still housing some people and paying rent for people who lost their homes during Hurricane Elsa, because at the end of the day, what happened was that their houses were lost, and the government had to find somewhere to put them up. It was actually 2021, I just checked; so we’re starting 2023, and the government is still carrying the burden of paying for housing for people who lost their homes, and who didn’t have insurance during that period, and helping them put houses back in place, so they can move out of rental facilities, and get back into their own homes. These are just some of the realities of being a small and a developing state, with limited resources and vulnerable communities.