Greening EU cooperation in the British Virgin Islands

This is a story about an EU-GCCA climate change adaptation project implemented in the British Virgin Islands, which helped mitigate the impact of hurricanes in the Eastern Caribbean region. Watch the video to learn more.

In September 2017, the Eastern Caribbean region experienced an unprecedented number of consecutive and concurrent tropical storms, including two category 5 hurricanes (Irma and Maria), which devastated Dominica, Barbuda, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands and also impacted St. Kitts and Nevis and Montserrat.

The hurricanes further exposed the particular vulnerability of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) sub-region to climate change and climate variability and amplified the call for urgent and accelerated action and support towards building resilience through adaptation and mitigation interventions.

Amidst the devastation, multiple climate change adaptation initiatives, implemented under the OECS EU-GCCA ‘Climate change adaptation and sustainable land management in the Eastern Caribbean’ project (the iLAND Resilience Project, EUR 10.6 million), have withstood the ravages of hurricanes. These initiatives showcase the successes of adaptation and resilience building, and can be replicated and scaled up. They include coastal revetments in Cane Garden Bay (Tortola, BVI) and Coconut Walk (Nevis), and flood mitigation interventions in Brewers Bay (Tortola, BVI) and in Sandy Ground (Anguilla).

For example, the Cane Garden Bay Revetment, completed in July 2017, is one of the major success stories and flagships of the iLAND Resilience Project and is a known success also at the regional level. The boulder structure was engineered based on a coastal dynamics study to protect the critical coastal road into Cane Garden Bay from storm surges associated with Category 4 hurricanes and a one-meter sea level rise. The revetment actually withstood the unprecedented storm surge of Category 5 Hurricane Irma and now serves as a regional model for coastal defence. Other on-the-ground projects included road drainage improvements in Cane Garden Bay and Brewers Bay. 

Buildings in affected states were significantly destroyed, reiterating the urgent need for the adoption, enforcement and systematic upgrading of building codes, and demonstrating the immense relevance of the recent and ongoing interventions by the OECS EU-GCCA project to update the OECS building codes and develop best practice institutional and legislative frameworks for implementation.  

The iLAND Resilience initiative has also upgraded the capacity of key institutions by delivering important tools and training in relevant disciplines, such as "Geographic Information System" (GIS), and is supporting policy dialogues, awareness and education on Climate Change and Sustainable Land Management issues.  Several frameworks have been  strengthened, and continue to be, including National Land Policies, Climate Change Policies, Environmental Management legislation, Physical Planning and Regulations, across multiple OECS Member States.

For more information and media, please visit:

https://www.gcca.eu/programmes/climate-change-adaptation-and-sustainable-land-management-eastern-caribbean

For further guidance on greening EU cooperation, contact:

DEVCO Environment and Climate Change Mainstreaming Facility

E:  EuropeAid-C2-MAINSTREAMING@ec.europa.eu