My Island - My Community: Increasing Awareness and Changing Attitudes and Behaviours on Climate Change and Environment in Tobago


Tobago is at the front line of adapting to climate change, protecting international waters and conserving biodiversity. Small islands are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, protected areas, including the Buccoo Reef and Tobago Main Ridge Forest Reserve, economies, tourism and the communities that live there. While global attention has been brought to bear on this issue, there remains a critical local communications challenge: how to effectively engage the public, ensuring they have access to sound and timely information about biodiversity conservation and protection of international waters, and a clear vision of what they can do to help mitigate the challenges posed by climate change.

In January 2010, Media Impact and 11 partner organizations launched an ambitious new partnership program, My Island – My Community, to address the ecological and economic impacts of climate change in the Caribbean. This program will use the power of communication -- a regional radio serial drama, national weekly magazine call-in shows, capacity development for important stakeholders, and local Community Action Campaigns -- to raise awareness and improve knowledge of challenges posed by climate change and loss of biodiversity in the general public; encourage wide-spread behaviour change to lessen the ecological and economic impacts of these changes on small island communities; and ultimately influence policy decisions at the local, national, and regional levels. My Island – My Community also brings together a unique network of committed organizations to enhance knowledge sharing and support community-based adaptation activities across the 11 island nations, including Tobago.

The Buccoo Reef Trust and the Speyside Eco-Marine Park Rangers are committed to forming a Tobago-based coalition and joining the regional initiative. This project comes at a key time in Tobago, as there are currently three important draft national policies addressing climate change, forests and protected areas in debate, and could later expand to include Trinidad. The results of the program including greater understanding of, and adaptation to, the threats and challenges posed by climate change, to ultimately impact individual and community behaviours that will preserve protected areas and endangered species and create sustainable livelihoods for local residents.