On June 27th, 2023, the project team, led by Dr. Deborah Villarroel-Lamb (Lead Investigator) and Dr. Arlette Saint Ville, conducted a hybrid workshop titled “Effective Implementation of Nature-based Solutions for Sustainable Hazard Mitigation in Coastal Zones” at the Sustainability Research and Innovation (SRI) Congress in Panama. A total of 65 people registered for the workshop, representing practitioners, academia and state actors covering a diversity of sectors including climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, natural resource management, fisheries, coastal engineering and planning. The majority of participants hailed from Latin America and the Caribbean. The full list of countries represented is given below:
Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad & Tobago, Guadeloupe, Saint Lucia, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, Belize, The Bahamas, Brazil, Panamá, Puerto Rico, Peru, México, United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom, Italy, Ireland, Ghana, and China.
After welcome remarks and special presentations on various implementations of Nature-Based Solutions, stakeholders were guided through a facilitated process using a Group Model Building (GMB) approach to develop a causal loop map of factors that help explain behaviours that contribute to low uptake of NbSs in Latin America and the Caribbean.
There was a general agreement that the uptake of NbSs is low in the Caribbean region and that the issue is complex with many interlinked factors. Emphasis was placed on the need for transdisciplinary research and more effective partnerships, as well as the critical importance of training and education where information is available. The summary report for this workshop can be found here.
A follow up meeting to validate the Workshop’s result took place in January 2024. The Workshop’s summary report can be viewed here.
