The development of Grenada’s National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) was undertaken by the Government of Grenada through a process facilitated by the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) from 2019 to 2023. This process was characterized by the contributions of many stakeholders, including technical officers from the Environment Division and other State agencies, local, regional, and international experts, representatives of civil society organizations (CSOs), and local communities. It is hoped that the process followed for the development of the NEA, especially the high level of stakeholder engagement and incorporation of local knowledge, can serve as a blueprint for undertaking similar exercises in other Caribbean countries and in other parts of the globe.
A special aspect of the development process was the decision to produce this Citizen’s Guide to the NEA. In early stakeholder discussions, representatives of civil society requested the development of a product that would package the NEA document into a format that allows for easy extraction and communication of information relevant to their environmental management activities. In response to this request, CANARI sought funding from the Global Environment Facility Integrating Water, Land and Ecosystems Management in Caribbean Small Island Developing States (GEF-IWEco) project implemented by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), under which Grenada is a beneficiary. This resulted in the GEF-IWEco project on “Capacity building and knowledge products to enhance the use and uptake of the National Ecosystem Assessment of the tri-island state of Grenada, Carriacou, and Petite Martinique,” the outputs of which include this Guide as well as communications capacity building for civil society to effectively use and promote the information in the Grenada NEA.
The Guide provides synopses of the content of each chapter of the NEA, but with general reorganization of the content where relevant and where this may improve flow, readability, and promote ‘connectedness’ of information. It is hoped that the Citizen’s Guide will be utilized to the full extent available, in order to promote continuous improvement and wise decision-making regarding Grenada’s natural environment and its citizens’ sustainable futures. The Guide does not replace the NEA document; rather, it aims to facilitate the uptake of the NEA by civil society: assisting in further dissemination of information to various audiences; providing data for use in informed engagement activities; and proposing ideas for action agendas of individual groups. Users of the guide are encouraged to review the main document if additional information is needed. In particular, users can access the references and sources of data in this Citizen Guide from the main NEA document. The main NEA document, in turn, can be accessed online at Grenada Ecosystem Assessment – Linking Science and Policy and cited as:
Agard, J., St. Louis, A., and Boodram, N. (eds.) (2023) Grenada National Ecosystem Assessment. St. Georges, Grenada: Government of Grenada; Barataria, Trinidad, and Tobago: Caribbean Natural Resources Institute.
The Citizen’s Guide begins with a short description of the main NEA document and then describes the following ecosystems: Agricultural and Agroecosystems, Coastal, Deep Ocean, and Freshwater.
