The Caribbean Regional Logistics Hub and Centre of Excellence was officially launched in Barbados on August 11. It will serve as the central location for the facilitation of coordinated efforts and responses in the event of emergencies. The initiative was funded by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), European Union (EU), and Canadian Embassy. Barbados Today reports.

Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley is making an urgent call for everyone to make a serious effort to mitigate the climate crisis. She said immediate and drastic steps are needed to avoid disaster. She said this year more people have been displaced by climate change than war. Mottley was speaking at the launch of the Caribbean Regional Logistics Hub and Centre of Excellence. She said it was the responsibility of world leaders to recognize the problem and make urgent changes. Barbados Today reports

Climate Justice

• Six hundred young Jamaican farmers and fishers will be taught how to bolster their enterprises and combat climate change through the  ‘Strengthening the Adaptive Capacity of Farmers and Fisherfolk in Jamaica’ project. This pilot project was funded through a  multi-million-dollar grant from Global Affairs Canada and the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), United Kingdom. For six months, they will be trained in business management and financial literacy, how to strengthen their farming, fisheries, and agro-processing enterprises. This project is a part of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Enabling Gender-Responsive Disaster Recovery, Climate, and Environmental Resilience in the Caribbean (EnGenDER) Project. Caribbean Nation Weekly reports.
  
  
• Providencia, a tiny Caribbean island and territory of Colombia, was hit by hurricane Iota in 2020. Known as the flower of the ocean, the island’s infrastructure was devastated, both the human-built structures and the ecosystem. Two years after the hurricane, the island is still being rebuilt. Loop Caribbean reports

• Civil Society Groups in Jamaica jointly signed a statement detailing the contamination of the Rio Cobre river in St. Catherine from the bauxite-alumina refinery at Windalco in Ewarton, owned by UC Rusal. In a release from joint civil societies such as Jamaica Conservation Partners and Jamaica Climate Change Youth Council (JCCYC), the discharges pollute the river, affecting water quality, killing fish and marine organisms, and compromising the food resources and livelihoods of the surrounding community. Read more in a press release from the Jamaican Environment Trust’s Facebook page. 
  
  
• Deep sea mining could begin in Jamaica in 2023, despite environmental activists and scientists warning against disrupting the “fragile and critically important” ecosystem. Environmental activist and CEO of the Jamaica Environmental Trust, Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie, PhD,  believes, “The impacts of deep sea mining (DSM) have the potential to be devastating and global.” Read more in the Jamaica Gleaner.

Oil and Gas

• This opinion piece by Pat Dial highlights the growing and evolving issue of local content in Guyana for the oil and gas industry. Guyana has mandated those in the developing oil and gas industries to employ and use as many resources from Guyana as possible. For instance, expats in the oil and gas industry are not allowed to buy their own property but must rent. However, this created the unintended consequence of the cost of rentals going up and becoming out of reach for middle-class Guyanese citizens. Dial discusses more on the local content provisions for the oil and gas industry in Kaieteur News.

• Professor Paloma Mohamed-Martin, Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana, wants the first 60% of the oil and gas revenue to be invested into tertiary education institutions so that it can help develop the necessary labor force for the oil and gas industry. Oil Now Guyana reports

Human Rights

• The Government of Antigua and Barbuda is defending the police’s decision to use teargas on protestors in an attempt to get them to disperse a year ago. They were protesting the mandatory vaccination program for  frontline workers in an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19. Loop Caribbean reports.

Indigenous Rights 

• An indigenous population in Guyana is being terrorized by miners who are disrupting their land and way of life. The government and the National Toshaos Council (NTC) need to assess the level of devastation the  miners caused in the Region One indigenous community of Chinese Landing. The indigenous leaders say the miners have threatened the livelihood of the villagers and breached the Amerindian Act. Stabroek News reports.

Health

• The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) held a Special Session of the Directing Council on August 5 to address the monkeypox outbreak, including supporting equitable access to vaccines for at-risk populations  in the region. St Lucia Times reports. 

Gender Justice 

• In Antigua and Barbuda, the Directorate of Gender Affairs (DoGA) will relaunch The Men’s Critical Issues Series on state media. The series aims to examine the ways existing social constructs and gender norms affect men and boys with the hopes to spark discussions on how to find solutions. The Antigua Observer reports. 

Human Mobility + Human Trafficking 

• Four people were arrested in Venezuela for sexual treatment and trafficking of women to Trinidad and Tobago. A Venezuelan press release reported that on August 10 police acted after four women and a teenager made a complaint that they were “brought to TT under false pretenses to be sexually exploited.” When they entered Venezuela they made complaints about what they experienced.” Trinidad and Tobago Newsday reports. 

• Hundreds of migrants from Haiti and Cuba landed on Miami’s shores. Some even swam to the shores. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol detained many of them. Cuba and Haiti have a rapidly deteriorating political and economic system that has caused many of its citizens to flee to other countries. On August 6 a “jam-packed boat” ran aground off the Florida Keys. Some of the migrants were in the water without life jackets and had to be rescued. Officials from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol were working to “transfer them into our custody and into the immigration process.” The Miami Herald, The New York Post, and NBC Miami report. 

• US authorities are searching for the smugglers responsible for a “massive” number of migrants from Haiti who landed near Key Largo. Marleine Bastien, Executive Director of Family Action Network Movement and Vice-Chair of the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition said, “When you look at the migration flow of Haitian refugees for the past 50 years, you always see an uptick at times of political instability and grave human rights abuses. It never fails.” CBS News reports.

• U.S. Border Patrol agents intercepted a boat containing 109 Haitian migrants approximately 800 yards off Marathon, Florida. It is considered a maritime smuggling event. The migrants were given water and checked medically after they were taken into custody. Local 10 news reports.

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